Burn It Down
by lachlanrose
Summary: What has been seen cannot be unseen. In response, the Wolverine makes the Rogue an unexpected offer. Her choice is unorthodox, and the addictive results quickly blaze out of control. W/R
1. Tinder

**Title:** Burn It Down  
 **Disclaimer:** Not mine. (Damn shame, that.)  
 **Feedback:** Is better than two fingers of Four Roses, bub. The good, the bad, the ugly, welcome. Flames may be publicly mocked.  
 **Summary:** What has been seen cannot be unseen. In response, the Wolverine makes the Rogue an unexpected offer. Her choice is unorthodox, and the addictive results quickly blaze out of control. W/R  
 **Notes:** Firstly, apologies for the lengthy radio silence. RL has been pretty full-on. Secondly, a huge thank you to my long-suffering beta, the awesome DoctorG, who's put up with my writing in fits and starts. Thirdly, I'm fairly certain this story isn't going to be everyone's cup of tea, so I'm disclosing that up front. It's pretty thorny (I hope!) and certainly not for the faint of heart… or for the vanilla lovers among us! Heh.

I was curious about exploring the idea of relationships that don't fit neatly into conventionally accepted ideas of intimacy and sex. It's designed to be uncomfortable and to push all kinds of boundaries, both emotional and physical. It's also pretty heavy on the citrus. (Clearly! Y'all know I am incapable of writing anything else!) If you don't like that kinda thing, feel free give this one a pass. Y _ou have been warned!_ This Rogue is darker and more prone to questionable choices than my usual and this Wolverine is harder and less inclined to put up with her crap. If you're still here after that, you're my kinda people. Onward!

Additionally, for those folks who are wondering about _Shine Against Me_ — Yes, it will be finished. There is no way my WolverineMuse is going to be denied his Red Door nookie. (He's a demanding, relentless bastard.) Just sayin'.

* * *

 **Burn It Down**

The first time it happened, it was an accident.

Marie had been to this shitty fight bar a few times now. She always came alone. Pete and Kitty wouldn't have approved. Jubilee would have, enthusiastically. She was always up for trouble… but it wasn't any of those things that had Marie hesitantly picking her way between the rowdy patrons all by herself.

It wasn't even Logan's lingering presence in her head that underscored her desire to immerse herself in this rough environment. It was more the memory of how these sorts of places made him _feel_. A finger in the dam. A way to fill that yawning chasm of emptiness. A sad stop-gap measure to not be alone in a world where they were both very much on the outside looking in.

If she was honest with herself, it would have been easier to have Jubilee here at her side. She was always up for a good time… plus she was safety in numbers, feminine solidarity and a mouth that may as well be a weapon of mass destruction in a fun-sized package— handy when one didn't want to be alone while they still also wanted to keep the world at arm's length.

Marie came by herself because she didn't want any of the others to know. To see her vulnerabilities revealed so starkly. That piece of Logan still knocking around in her head told her he came to these kinds of places for contact with people in a very controlled way. A fight. A fuck. A drink at a bar next to a dozen other poor souls all wanting the same thing — something to dull the pain of living inside their own skins.

Halle-fuckin'-lujah. And could she get an Amen?

Logan's personal demons were darker than her own… and being here worked for him, at least a little. She liked that it made the lingering glimmers of him in her head louder, too. Stronger. More vibrant. In turn, they fed the fire of her own reckless defiance. She'd always been headstrong, even as a child. A born hellraiser, she'd heard her daddy say once when he thought she was out of earshot.

That he'd given it a name was almost worse in some ways. Prophetic.

It was a tall order; something to aspire to, live up to, and run from — in turns. Embracing it felt shockingly good; both terrifying and orgasmic.

She was twenty-three and utterly alone. There was more death and pain in her past than love. That just wasn't right. But maybe she could make a place for herself here in this strange tribe of throwaway people.

Her first attempt failed utterly. She fit in on the inside— but her outside was woefully wrong. There were only two kinds of women here; tawdry cage bunnies and the crusty firebrands who'd been some biker's Old Lady long enough that they'd earned a certain untouchable status, like a lifer in some rank prison. Respect and deference born of what they'd endured on their backs, or their knees, or whatever else they'd given up to make their place here.

The cage bunnies were different; all skin and sex and desperation that no amount of makeup or imitation high-end perfume could cover. It amused Marie in a macabre sort of way. What did it matter if they smelled like Givenchy or Chanel when they were fucking random men in back rooms and alleys?

That she was an anomaly in this world was painfully apparent. Jeans and boots and a leather jacket was fine for the men, but on a young woman? It just didn't compute. She wasn't old enough to have earned anything other than scorn or prurient leers. She wasn't showing any skin and her goal wasn't to attract male attention with her body or her actions. Marie was green as fresh grass and it showed.

Painfully.

Her first time, she'd lasted barely twenty minutes. She hadn't even finished her beer before some fuckwit's filthy suggestions and menacing encroachment of her personal space had her fleeing hurriedly into the night like a scared rabbit.

The second time was just as uncomfortable, but she lasted more than an hour. A shot and a beer. She finished them both. Slowly. Watching the crowd this time. Making mental notes, even as she squirmed under the scrutiny of men who lusted after lush and ripe and pure, despite the deadly package it was wrapped in.

The next time was easier. Higher heels. Tighter clothes. Black smokey eyes, like warpaint. A warning. No longer fresh faced and advertising her innocence. She wanted to look hard. To _be_ hard. Untouchable. She wanted the ache inside not to matter. It was easier in this place than at the school, surrounded by shiny happy people who lived and breathed hope and radiated goodness.

Her hope had died the night Erik raped her mind in the torch. Now she had steel and grit and more acerbic skepticism than was healthy for someone her age. Or maybe that should be 'someone of her years'. She supposed it really depended on how one was counting. Decades and centuries stacked up in her head like snowdrifts. Thousands of jagged splinters of memories that were not her own.

Sometimes she wondered if it was possible to smother from the inside.

In her more contemplative moments, she wondered if it would be better to be on the other end of that spectrum. Less is more? But she knew how it felt to remember only bits and pieces of a forgotten life; a handful of puzzle pieces stirring old ghosts and hinting at a picture long gone. That barren wasteland was a special kind of hell. Unsettling. Like a sharp stone in your shoe. No wonder Logan drifted. Being still hurt too much.

She didn't like that stillness either, and when it got too unbearable, Marie went looking for anonymity in a way Charles never imagined.

Fight clubs and dive bars were becoming her new 'normal'. There was an unvarnished honesty there that she liked. Bliss, for a girl who knew all too well that the exterior rarely matched the jumble of thoughts within. Truth in advertising, she supposed. Sex and violence and testosterone. Alcohol and bloodlust and hard men who said what they thought, good or bad, and fuck the chips no matter which way they fell.

All of it appealed to her, despite her moments of shyness and hesitation. A breath indrawn too quickly to be anything but shock. Shivers of indignation, and yes, desire. Watching the fights always made her wet and twitchy, probably because in her mind's eye, it was the Wolverine she saw in the cage.

Every time.

That night was burned into her brain, even now, more than half a decade later. She envied and admired his ability to sink so effortlessly into that wilder side of himself. To be what he was without apology. To revel in it. Someday, she hoped to be able to do the same.

Shouts and music beat against her eardrums. Her drink was sharp on her tongue. Smokey after. And warm. Burning down and down… Hunger around her, everywhere. For violence. For the release of a quick, dirty fuck. For the blissful numbness of taking a brutal punch. Or giving one. The tempo of the night was like a heartbeat, pounding under her skin and between her legs.

Hunger and want and satiation. The build up. That delicious, shuddering glory. The gasping slide downward in the aftermath, sweaty and breathless. Marie drank it in greedily. It was more addictive than the Jameson in her glass and it had a better kick, too. For Marie, it was like standing at the edge of a bonfire. Close enough to feel the heat — without the danger that she'd burn the world down in an unguarded moment.

It was enough.

For now.

Tonight leather pants and creamy cleavage laced into a rockabilly corset had joined the heavy black liner. Another step closer to the Rogue she wanted so desperately to become. In some ways the change made her less notable. She blended into the crowd a little better, but it drew more of a different sort of unwelcome attention.

She'd grown better at deflecting the rude comments and ignoring the dirty, hopeful leers. This time, however, the intrusively brazen finger tracing the seam of lace and breast was one blazing leap too far. Even though she hated to be touched, it was less the shock of physical contact and more what her skin had pulled from him in the sliver of time before she'd scrambled away, gasping. It wasn't the content of the jumble of foreign male thoughts — carnal and raw and so explicitly graphic it was like a physical blow — as much as it was her reaction to them that sent her shoving past her woozy companion and his looming friends and into the heaving crowd.

She'd clocked the exits when she came in. Another of _his_ lessons.

 _Never sit with your back to the door, kid, unless you know you can take all comers, n'always know where your exits are, just in case. Shit happens, even when all you're lookin' for is a fuckin' drink._

But she couldn't think about Logan right now. Not with what was burning in her blood, bright and loud and hot and so damned overwhelming that it was hard to even drag in a calming breath.

After the first few wild steps, even her flight to the unmarked door at the back of the bar was somewhat controlled. Another of his lessons. _Only run as a last resort, darlin'. Draws too much attention, otherwise._ By the time she'd slipped into the maze of storage buildings and alleyways out back, her retreat was utterly silent, save for the dull roaring in her ears.

He was there in her head too. _Softly, softly._

Her blood hadn't even stopped pounding yet and she was already thinking of what she'd wear the next time she went back. Even as her mind was screaming _coward, coward, coward_ , there was something else there too. Something darker and hungrier. Maybe those new suede pants that had sent Logan's eyebrows to his hairline and the fuck-me boots she'd worn once to his combat class because she'd lost a bet with Jubes...

He'd taken one look at her, muscle jumping in his clenched jaw, and he'd kicked her out of class with a growl and muttered curse. _If you can fight in those, ya won't need my class no more, but right now you're gonna break your fuckin' neck, so get the hell out until you've lost the boots._ His eyes had followed her as she'd left, though, and that had felt like a victory despite the fact he'd ordered her away like an errant child.

Jubes had pointed out to her afterwards that the vein throbbing in his forehead and the sweat gathering at the base of his spine hadn't made an appearance until after he'd gotten a good, long look at her in the boots. Marie wasn't so sure. There was something there, but knowing it and acknowledging it were two entirely different things.

The lingering smile that memory evoked hadn't even faded from her face when a very specific sound in the alley brought her up short. She approached the next turn on silent feet. Her steps halted as she tried to comprehend what she was seeing. The sounds of sweaty urgent sex thrummed against her ears.

In the shadows, a woman was bent over a stack of wooden pallets and a man was pumping into her from behind with heavy, concussive thrusts that lifted her heels from the ground each time he slammed into her.

Marie watched, mesmerized for several long moments, hardly able to process the scene before her. The raw carnality was intensely shocking. While she couldn't actually see everything from her vantage point behind a stack of old crates, there was zero ambiguity about the primal nature of the coupling she'd stumbled upon. It was pure sex. Raw and vital and shamelessly obscene, from the arch of the woman's back, to the power in the man's rutting hips, to the line of the woman's neck when that big fist wrapped in her hair and _pulled_.

She should go. Now. _Nownownow._ Run away and pretend she'd never seen this brutal moment of animal lust, and yet she stood as still as the shadows shrouding her, unable to look away. Utterly transfixed.

The woman's fingers scrabbled on the wood for purchase and she was breathlessly chanting _fuckmefuckmefuckme_ as the man's rhythm increased and then became erratic. The woman's voice broke on a rising wail, smothered against his palm. The man's grunts of exertions became a snarl and his big body began to shudder into the soft curves under him.

Like a tape caught up, frozen, time that had seemed impossibly slow suddenly spooled forward and Marie became aware of two things simultaneously. One, that the rough growl ripping out of the man's chest was startlingly familiar, and two, she actually recognized the ass rising and falling against the woman's spent body. She knew that jacket peeking from under them, too. And the wild points in his hair when her gaze was finally able to leave the sweat shining at the small of his back as the growl faded away into the darkness and he collapsed heavily against the small, soft body, panting roughly.

Marie didn't even need the woman's round, satiated tones purring, "Wolverine…" with exaggerated languor to identify the male body, still rippling with aftershocks. Something in her had recognized him straight off, despite the shadows and the fact that her eyes hadn't roamed much higher than his lean hips and powerful back. Some part of her and known it was him and she'd watched anyway.

That felt bad. Worse even than the night he'd stabbed her and she'd taken him into her. Another intrusion. Like the ride she'd demanded the first day they'd met. Or that night in the torch soon after. Guilt flooded her, hot and thick, a lump of slag that sat heavy in a belly still rolling with unspent desire. Her face flamed as self-preservation warred with prurience.

She'd imagined this scene in her head so many times, only it was always her body, limp with orgasm, safe and sheltered under the solid feel of his big frame. In her dreams, she was that woman, but also somehow watching from afar, too. So strange, dreams. Touch never scared her there. Sometimes she was in Logan's head, too. Aware of everything he felt, as well.

Marie was torn between wanting to see more and wanting to escape before he caught her. Even her desperate desire wasn't enough to risk damaging the unspoken bond between them.

"Fuck," he rumbled into the spill of blonde silk still wrapped around his fist.

He might have enhanced senses, but he was like any other man in the throes of orgasm, at the mercy of his body and blind to everything but his own need in those final moments. Even the Wolverine couldn't defy nature. The world, and its painful realities, faded away until there was only bliss and numbness and the liquid rush; gouts of pleasure, spent without thought or remorse.

Marie was gone before his awareness returned, her chest burning and her footfalls heavy on the black pavement.

Running again.

* * *

Up next: **Smolder**. Y'all know the Rogue is gonna have something to say about that, right? Marie talks. The Wolverine plays dirty.


	2. Smolder

**Author's note** (with info that I should have put in the previous author's note — but I didn't because I am rusty as all hell, clearly!): As far as the timeline goes, this story takes place after Logan returns from Japan. For those who like a heads up, I think this one is gonna wind up in the neighborhood of thirty-something chapters. I'm aiming to post a chapter or so a week, probably on Thursdays. We'll see how it goes. Onward!

* * *

Marie found Logan sitting on the edge of the dock with a beer in his hand, staring out at the lake that bordered the back of the school's property. A six pack of longnecks sat beside him, sweating in the moonlight, and she wondered, not for the first time, why a man with so much metal in him was so drawn to the water. His easy stillness seemed to suggest he found it peaceful, but she wasn't so sure that was it. Not really. Nothing was ever easy with him, even when he wasn't deliberately pushing away the world.

She sat down beside him and he wordlessly passed over a beer. He took it back and opened it for her with an amused grunt when he realized she couldn't get the cap off. Imports.

"I saw you last night."

That was a hell of an opener. The beer stopped halfway to his mouth but he didn't turn to look at her.

"Saw me _fight_?"

There was no rancor or accusation in his words, just curiosity with a touch of something twined through it that she couldn't quite put her finger on.

"No."

He knew instantly what she'd seen.

 _Shit._

That explained why she'd bailed on him earlier today. And why she'd come looking for him tonight. She was a straight shooter. Always had been and for a moment he froze, uncharacteristically unsure, as he drew her in with all his senses, trying to read every little nuance. That wasn't easy on a good day.

She was clearly flustered, despite the directness of her opening volley. He could see the pink in her face, that telltale flush of blood, even in the silvery moonlight. Her drawn brows suggested contemplation rather than anger or disappointment. The peppery scent of her embarrassment filled his head, but they were top notes only. Under it was a sweet, sultry musk that told him quite plainly she'd liked what she'd seen. A lot. The lip caught between her teeth hinted she might be open to seeing a little more. At the very least, he knew there was more locked away there than she was owning up to.

He wasn't as oblivious as they imagined him to be. Or as detached.

But he wasn't stupid, either. It wasn't even that she was a kid. She wasn't. Not anymore. Not for a long time, now. But the thing with Bobby — that had ended badly — and though she was strong where it counted, she'd always been reckless and prone to self-destructive behavior. Drake's preference for her touchable, fuckable friend had hit her hard. She took that shit personal. For as much as she craved the idea of touch — real touch, not that PG bullshit the iceprick had played at — it terrified her.

It had gotten worse after she'd taken the Cure. Be careful what you ask for. He didn't know exactly what had happened during the long years he'd been away wandering the world after Jean's death, but he knew it had to have been damn bad. She'd never spoken of it to him, but he'd heard rumors. Whispers of a string of bad choices ending with some smooth-talking asshole and more than a year on the road alone, after. Total radio silence. Girl always had liked the wild ones. Unfortunately, not all roughnecks knew a good thing when they had it. Some dumbfuck had the moon and stars in his hands and had pissed it away, tarnishing their beautiful shine in the process.

She ran now, too. Often. South. Always south. And always alone. He'd heard rumors about that, too. Speculation from Las Vegas to Miami. Nashville. Atlanta. New Orleans. Santa Fe. Austin. If you wanted to pick a fight with her, that was the way to do it. Start digging there and she came out swinging. Hard. For a man who always ran north, it made perfect sense. Some people's internal compass always pointed one way.

Marie was a different person when he finally came back from Japan for good. A shadow of herself in some ways, larger than life in others, but not a kid. Christ, no goddamn kid had eyes like _that_. A thousand yard stare that could raise the hair on his neck and the gooseflesh on his arms on the rare occasions she deigned to let him see a glimmer of what lay behind the mask.

And then there was her body. Ripe and luscious and dripping with need so bad sometimes it made him shake. But she was different in other ways, too. Ways that made him keep his distance despite the way she looked at him. She was harder, now. Pricklier. More closed. More damaged, and that was saying something. That he recognized it said something about him, too.

When he turned his head, she was looking at him expectantly.

"You stick around for the encore, kid?" Little lift of his lips to let her know he was just fucking with her to break the ice a bit. It had just been that once with the girl in the alley. He'd gone home alone after, like always, and wound up out here on the dock, watching the water after several sleepless hours contemplating his ceiling. Hell, he spent more nights out here than he did in his own damn bed.

Once upon a time, she'd have punched his arm for a remark like that. Now she just rolled her eyes and snorted into her beer. "You wish, sugar."

He did, actually, which made the whole conversation even more surreal, but because he was the Wolverine, and people expected him to be an uncouth son-of-a-bitch, he lifted a brow and smirked at her. "You go home and touch yourself after?"

And because she was the Rogue, with her own fiery reputation to live up to, she blew him a kiss and threw back her head and laughed, a real belly laugh that made his teeth flash in the darkness. "Yep. Twice."

A couple of years ago, he'd have been able to tell when she was bluffing. He couldn't any more. There was a layer of sophistication there he hadn't expected, to say nothing of what that imagery did for him. He shifted on the dock, easing back to relieve the rush of blood under the guise of grabbing another beer.

The crack as he opened it was loud in the darkness and he flicked the cap at her just because he could.

"Only twice?" He couldn't resist engaging her even though he knew better. Fuck the lines they'd drawn in the sand. If she was going to cross them, he was too. The Rogue had been his own personal brand of kryptonite from the very beginning.

Even years ago, if she'd come to him wanting something - anything - he'd have given her whatever she needed for as long as she'd let him. Fuck the rules. His. Xavier's. Society's. Hers were the only ones he gave a shit about. She probably knew him better than anyone and she wasn't afraid to let him know she liked having him near, but she'd always kept her distance. Physically. Emotionally. It was like some overly-careful fucked up dance that they'd both become so proficient at that it was almost automatic now. They were probably the two people at the school who were the least likely to tiptoe around anything, and yet — this — _this_ they always left alone.

Until tonight, when she'd smashed everything all to hell with a few simple words.

"Not everyone heals, cowboy." She saluted him with her beer.

He chuckled into the darkness. Not too many people had the balls to say that to his face, or to imply there were uses to his healing factor beyond the obvious.

"Hell of a silver linin'," he agreed amicably, necking his bottle.

They fell quiet, listening to the lapping of the lake against the dock as it shifted and rocked softly under them. He took her silence to mean she was happy there was something about his mutation he enjoyed, but she was still looking at him like she was waiting for him to drop the hammer on her for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

So she was at a fight bar? So she watched two consenting adults have sex? He'd been at the same damn bar and he'd had sex with a stranger in an alley afterwards, for Christ's sake. There really wasn't a lot of moral high ground to claim there, even he had been so inclined. Still, that feeling that she was waiting for the other shoe to drop was getting to him.

"Enough with that face, huh? I ain't your father. If you're lookin' for a morality lecture, you're barkin' up the wrong tree."

She blinked at him and then her lip twitched.

"Woof."

"Heh." That made his raspy chuckle roll out across the water.

"I just wanted you to know, that's all."

"Gotcha."

He understood what she was saying. It was a little weird now, sure, but it would have been weirder later if he found out she'd kept something like that to herself. Even though it wasn't really a big deal, that was the kind of thing that festered. She was right to have said something now — to lance it before it became poison — but he still couldn't help reading the subtle signs that said there was something more here than she was saying with words. But for now, he let that sleeping bear lie. He was still putting the pieces of his life back together and she was little better.

Neither of them were ready to be eviscerated by that conversation, but he couldn't resist pushing a little. She wouldn't have been so jumpy if she'd just stumbled across them and left immediately. That told him she'd stayed and watched, and he couldn't quite let that go. While not an overt approach, it was a step outside their usual dance of denial, and something in him — something primal and wild that refused to be cowed — couldn't let that pass without comment. If she was going to open this door between them, he damn sure was going to walk through it.

"I'm goin' again Saturday night. Jack's. You gonna come?"

"To watch you fight?"

His teeth flashed in the darkness.

"That, too."

He could feel her eyes on him then, hot in the still night air. Curious. Searching. Trying to read his intent. He let her look and returned the stare with something a great deal warmer than his usual ambivalent detachment, but in the end he just exhaled slowly and she looked away, her beer to her lips.

The silent exchange was perhaps the first honest conversation they'd had since a stubborn girl lifted her chin defiantly and told him she wasn't taking the Cure for some _boy_.

Still, it hadn't made a damn bit of difference in the end no matter what he'd said — or what she'd ultimately chosen. Her gift had eventually reasserted itself and the time between then and now had not been kind to her. She'd have been better off embracing what she was from the start, but that wasn't his decision to make and some lessons needed to be learned the hard way, especially for people like them.

Beside him, Marie sighed, looking up at the stars. He wondered if there was a rolling in her belly, too. One that had nothing to do with the movement of the dock under them or the beers they'd put away in quick succession.

"Maybe," she finally offered, rolling the dark glass between her gloved palms.

Logan just watched the water. "Suit yourself, kid."

Neither of them said another word, but the night had shifted. It was heavy between them now where it had been loose and easy before. Like expectation. Like apprehension.

Like energy, gathering before a storm.

* * *

Up next: **Smoke**. The Rogue has never been able to resist a dare, especially not one issued by the Wolverine. (Y'all know I love me some feral Wolverine. In and _out_ of the cage…)


	3. Smoke

Logan finally saw her three fights in. The Rogue was leaning against the wall on the edge of the crowd, a beer dangling from her gloved fingers. Leather. Cleavage. He'd have looked twice even if he hadn't recognized her. She was wearing a hat pulled low over her eyes. It was the beat-up straw cowboy hat she'd liberated from his truck the summer after she had returned his tags. The summer before she'd taken the Cure.

The low brim hid her face and covered the distinctive ribbon of silver. Her hair had always reminded him of maple. That first bite of the axe into a dry round. That crack-split revealing the pale creamy center, shining against the rich brown of the bark, smooth and sweet and—

His inattention cost him a nasty punch to the jaw. He spat out a tooth and winced as he felt a new one push up through the ruined meat of his gums.

 _Motherfucker._

That shit hurt.

The fight slogged on, nothing had changed and yet everything felt different. Electric. Her eyes on him. Watching him. Touching him. Anointing each splatter of blood that marked his rippling flesh. Following the lines of his powerful frame as he moved. Flinching as he took a punch. Shivering when he landed one. Wetting her lips as he panted.

He'd always like fighting, but it had never been like _this_. The Wolverine blazed to the fore, tearing through every chain that bound him like paper and ash, and what had been rough became brutal. Vicious and savage. That first roar that tore from his chest cut through the din and even his enraged opponent took a step back in awe.

The Rogue took a step forward.

Ah, _fuck_.

The Wolverine growled, howling his approval as the blows fell, hot and fast and bloody. That quick release, so much like sex that he shuddered with the force of it surging under his skin. He could feel her eyes on him and his blood sang.

 _See what I am? See what I can do?_

The man's cocky swagger was eclipsed by the Wolverine's unshakable confidence, humanity swallowed by the sheer force of the animal's indomitable will. He would be recognized. He was alpha here. Stronger, better than all the rest, and still — _still_ — not above showing off. For _her_. For the one female who had touched his heart but never his flesh.

He shared a drink with the Rogue between bouts. When she finally met his eyes under that damned hat, he jerked in his seat. Smokey eyes, lined heavily in black stared back at him defiantly, daring him to say something. She'd clearly come to make war, not love. Declaring herself on the field of battle as surely as he had in the cage earlier. He'd never seen her looking like _that_. Though he acknowledged the change with a curt nod that she returned with a lift of her glass, his internal landscape was far from serene. Heat and desire roiled low in his belly, putting an edge on the wildness burning in his blood.

They barely spoke. She seemed oblivious to the eyes on her and annoyed with the men in general — and him in specific. He looked too. Her scent told him she liked it well enough even if there was fire in her eyes. No woman poured herself into that much leather and satin and cinched it tight unless she wanted attention. Or to make a statement, at the very least.

Tonight hers seemed to roar a definitive _'fuck you'_ , despite her frosty silence. He smiled into his drink because he knew her well and he'd always liked her like this. Prickly. Antagonistic. Fiery as hell. Girl was spoiling for a fight. He didn't pick one because he knew it would piss her off more.

He moved closer instead. The animal would not allow her to pretend indifference now. Not when she'd responded to his primal howl so viscerally. He deliberately put his thick, hairy arm in her space, a sprawl that was half irritation and half possession. Sweat shining on his body and marking the seat at his back. She could smell him, he knew, musky and wild. Good bourbon and sweet tobacco and that coppery tang that made her twitchy as hell.

And then he shifted closer still so she could feel the heat radiating from him. Not quite a come-on, but not platonic, either. Their silent struggle was every bit as brutal a battle of wills as what had happened in the cage; a savage, wordless trading of metaphoric blows, and a give and take of power. But this, _this_ was personal. As close to intimate as they'd been since that night in the torch when he'd shoved every bit of himself inside her and she'd gorged on him until the flame that raged so brightly in him lit up every dark corner of her, too.

Usually he would have goaded her into a fight by now. Their energy had always been volatile. Fighting helped expend it in a safe way. Or perhaps safe wasn't quite the right word. Their arguments were legendary. Cursing and shouting. Flying objects. Broken glass. Wrecked furniture. Bruises and scrapes and even blood a time or two.

Tonight it was different.

Virgin ground. A new gauntlet thrown down between them. Girl never could resist a dare, but it wasn't just that. Something else was driving it and some obstacles were so big they couldn't be tackled head on. The part of his brain that could still reason was shrieking: _Danger! Madness!_ It demanded retreat, or regroup, or at the very least a review of what was at best a sketchy battle plan. Instinct, however, prevailed. He couldn't explain how, or why, or even exactly what it was that he'd offered her. He just knew that it would work if she'd just drop her guard enough to let him in.

The announcer in the ring called his name. As the dull roar of the crowd rose around them, he canted his head to catch her eye under the hat.

"You stayin' after?"

She looked pissed, eyes incandescent with fury. At him? Herself? The ambivalent nature of his offer? Who fucking knew? He was close enough to the edge that he didn't give a shit. She could ignore it all she liked as long as she didn't deny it outright.

The animal demanded that much.

"Depends on if I like what I see, sugar."

Screw that. The slip and slick of her under those goddamn leather pants announced a fucking sledgehammer of 'like', stirring up a river of dirty in the back of his mind. Still, he knew if she called her on it now, she'd pull off that glove and make him eat every last, painfully honest word. A full frontal assault would have her running for the hills, but Christ, that luscious scent made his cock throb and a red haze creep over his vision.

His hands clenched into fists.

The Rogue saw it and smiled.

And that just plain pissed him off.

The Wolverine uncoiled from the worn chair, looming over her; an inescapable wall of muscle and metal and attitude that made her breath catch and her nipples draw up hard and tight; her body acknowledging what her mind refused to. That had amusement skittering over his face to rest in the lines at the corners of his eyes. He wasn't the only one twisting in the wind tonight.

He grunted in acknowledgement as her grin faded — because fuck her. She could pretend all she liked. Everything had changed the moment she'd sat down next to him and told him she'd watched him come.

You didn't play chicken with the Wolverine. At least not without expecting to take a few hard shots along the way.

Especially not when playing with the Rogue, who was both sharp and ruthless— and devastatingly unpredictable on a good day.

He leaned in closer to that beautiful, deadly flesh and put his mouth to her ear.

"Ain't had no complaints."

Somewhere buried deep, there was warmth and tenderness for her. He cared more than he should. Probably more than either of them realized. But it wasn't in him to be soft tonight, or to let her back away from the edge. Fuck their usual lines in the sand. Fuck safe. Fuck _sane_.

"I'll bet. Because your usual conquests are so discerning." Her mouth twisted in a parody of a smile.

He ignored the nasty barb, aware the more she bristled, the closer he was to the vulnerable parts she hated for anyone to see.

He could relate, but the momentum had him now, and even that intimate knowledge didn't stop him from delivering the killing blow.

"S'okay. I get it. S'fuckin' scary. Don't mean it's wrong, though. I'm just sayin' it's yours if you want it, darlin'. Up to you."

 _C'mon. I'll take care of you._

He didn't say it, but he could tell she heard it well enough. Words from a lifetime ago, written on their bones, and just as apt tonight as they were on that train before Magneto tore their lives apart and forced them both into places neither of them were ready to go.

Her eyes softened, just for a moment. A flash of tenderness, of hope, before she crushed it down. It was in that split second that every moment of hesitation or indecision about tonight burned away. He was all in. Ready to double down and let it ride.

"Fuck you."

"Nah. That ain't what's on offer, kid."

He saluted her with his beer and left her sputtering in his wake as he climbed back in the cage and let the animal rage.

* * *

Up next: **Fire**. No way the Rogue is gonna let the Wolverine have the last word. Girl is cocked, locked and ready to rock...


	4. Fire

How _dare_ he?

The Rogue pulled aggressively from her beer as she fumed, and for a handful of moments, she actually considered chucking the bottle at the Wolverine's thick, arrogant skull.

What the fuck? The nerve of him! Who did he think he was? And more to the point, who the hell did he think _she_ was that there was any universe where she'd actually be down for that?

She'd come to the shitty fight bar tonight, sure. Because there was no chance in hell she'd let him get the last word there. No way. She had a reputation to live up to, but more than that, she'd choke on her damn pride before she ever let him see how much this whole thing had shaken her to the marrow of her bones... but she never imagined he'd actually follow through. And she'd damn sure never acknowledge the small, bright part of her that was delirious that he had. What the fuck was that even about?

The offer infuriated her on principle. A nebulous invitation to watch him screw some faceless woman was even worse than a pity fuck.

Even the untouchable girl had standards. Morals. Lines she never thought she'd cross. Not even for him.

But sweet Jesus, it had been so long. Years. But not so many years that she couldn't remember what a man's touch felt like on her skin. Her whole body shuddered as that familiar panic welled up. Dry mouth. Churning guts. Racing heart. Clammy hands, sweating in her gloves. Fear and regret and a thousand what-ifs closing her throat until the spots flashing before her made her close her eyes.

If the Wolverine was the animal he thought he was, surely even he could see it? Nature didn't make mistakes. The natural order of things was not to be fucked with, and Nature had obviously made her this way for some twisted reason. Poison. Toxic. Deadly. How dare he defy that? How dare he give her even a glimmer of hope that there would ever be anything more for her than solitary orgasms in a cold, empty bed?

Fuck him.

Fuck them all.

Marie stalked back to the bar and pretended not to watch the fight as she pounded a shot of _'I don't dadgum care_ ' and another of ' _screw you_ '. With that burning in her blood, she moved on to a bottle of ' _I'm gonna make you fucking pay for that_ '. That one she savored, enjoying the strong buzz and stealing glances at the cage when the roar of the crowd and the dull smack of flesh impacting flesh convinced her he was too busy to notice.

He caught her looking though, and roared in victory; a sound that had everything to do with her and nothing to do with the man he was in the process of beating bloody.

In response, she put her back to the cage and her temper flared when he laughed, fucking _laughed_ at her fit of defiant pique. Smug arrogant _bastard_. She didn't even have to look to know that cocky smirk that infuriated her so was pulling at his lips. She spent the next half hour berating herself and feeling the room spin as she watched the women, wondering if any of them had been fucked by the Wolverine. Marie huffed in irritation, thinking how many of them in the room tonight would come running if he so much as crooked a finger in their direction.

The set of her shoulders and the steel in her magnolia spine broadcasted her position quite clearly. _Don't hold your breath, cowboy._ The world would stop spinning before she joined the nest of cage bunnies vying for his attention and hoping to catch his wandering eye.

Even the blood boiling in her veins wasn't enough to stop the flow of insidious, carnal thoughts from escaping the dark corners she'd shoved them into years ago, back when she was still foolish enough to believe in fairytales and happy endings. What he'd said— what he'd _offered_ — that had wounded her pride, but even worse than that was the part of her that leapt at the idea. What did that say about her that she found the idea of watching him have sex disturbingly erotic?

She hadn't forgotten seeing him with that woman. Their ragged breaths, the slap of sweaty skin. All of it was burned into her memory; permanent shadows after a nuclear blast. The sound he made when he came seemed to be playing on an endless loop in her head. Those deep masculine grunts. So rhythmic. So primal. Marking the spurts as his shuddering body pumped his seed…

Imagine a front row seat to _that_?

Her hand was sliding up her thigh before she knew it, and suddenly it was all too much. Shoving away from the table, she pushed through the crowd and out into the night, dragging in deep breaths of the crisp night air.

She bummed a cigarette off a girl smoking outside. Under the heavy makeup, false lashes and push-up bra, the girl couldn't have been more than sixteen. So easy to see now that she was on the other side of twenty. It was disturbing. Marie's hand shook as she inhaled, wondering if that's what Logan had seen when she'd climbed into his truck so long ago.

Just a scared, belligerent kid, defiant to the end.

The more she thought about it, the angrier she got until the urge to find him and vent her spleen eclipsed everything else. She turned on her heel and stormed back inside. The crowd, three deep at the bar, told her the fights were over before her eyes had even touched the empty cage. The winners were celebrating. The losers were drowning their sorrows.

The announcer was gone and the Wolverine was too, presumably picking up his winnings before picking up something _else_ for the night. He'd once told her the bigger purses weren't usually paid out at the bar, and he'd probably made a couple of grand tonight. Marie sailed past the restrooms, heading for the peeling door marked 'office' that she'd seen earlier, tucked away in the dark hall across from the utility closet.

The manager was loitering outside the door, puffing on a cheap cigar. She'd seen him earlier ringside, taking money and marking bets. His salt-and-pepper pompadour was hard to miss, but it was his wild shirt that screamed 1970's Vegas that had really made an impression.

"You seen the Wolverine?" It came out sharply, and her mama echoed strongly in her head, chastising her for speaking without the Southern manners that were as automatic as breathing, except when she was as pissed as she was tonight.

"Jesus! Another one?" he muttered under his breath, giving her a ruddy-faced leer. The man's bushy brows went up and seemed to imply both jealousy and approval at the ample amount of prime pussy that landed in the Wolverine's lap. Another universal law. The best fighters always pulled the hottest tail.

But he looked like he was going to give her the brushoff until she pasted on what she hoped was a suitable impression of the typical empty-headed bimbo and forced herself to drawl, "He wanted me to come find him, you know, _after_."

Her temper flared because of how that sounded, and because it was also the truth, and because she'd been forced to say it to get inside that office so she could tear a strip off Logan's presumptive hide. She wasn't about to wait outside, tapping her foot and fuming while he counted his fucking money.

"He's in there," manager grunted, jerking his head toward the door without taking his eyes from the rise and fall of her breasts.

His fingers twitched.

Her eyes narrowed.

For one perverse moment, she almost hoped he'd touch her just so she could see him writhing on the floor in agony afterward, but then reality came slamming back and her skin crawled at the idea of his fingers on her and his filth pouring into her mind. That sickening claustrophobic feeling swelled under her skin, a hot sear that lodged acidically in the back of her throat. How ironic that the girl who'd so desperately longed for touch now feared it so much the idea made her queasy.

"Thanks, sugar," she purred automatically, skirting his girth in the narrow hall. He was a big man, an old fighter past his prime, but still solid. Still imposing. He'd have to be to keep liquored-up fighters and the wild crowd in line night after night.

A good hard kick to the knee he favored slightly would probably put him down pretty effectively, but right now the Rogue was only focused on one thing, and it rankled even more that one of _his_ lessons guided her even now. _No need to make a scene unless you wanna, kid. Quick and quiet's easier than goin' loud. Less fun overall, sure, but not everyone likes a fight as much as I do._

The Rogue wasn't so sure about that. She was spoiling for one tonight, but it wasn't some has-been manager who was the focus of her ire. She was pissed and more than a little drunk and the door stuck, her gloved fingers sliding on the jiggly knob as it finally gave way and she stepped inside, ready for war.

The unexpected interior slowed her fiery roll.

It was more a storeroom than an office; crates of liquor and supplies crammed the shelves that filled the small, dark space. The glow of a light from around a corner created by a solidly stacked wall of miscellany suggested she'd find the Wolverine there with a large stack of small bills and a surly attitude.

She was not prepared to find Logan sitting in a chair with his thighs spread wide and a woman kneeling between them.

Every last argument died on her lips as the explicit sight struck her mute and fixed her leaden feet to the rough, wooden floor. The urge to run was strong but the erotic shock held her fast. And then he met her eyes, and what she saw burning there made the overwhelming need to escape press in hard, a searing wave of mortification pushing her unsteady legs back to lean against the wall and chasing at her heels.

She was poised to flee, heart in her throat, but one word, husky and low, rasped across the cramped room and pinned her in place.

"Stay."

* * *

 **Author's note** : Yep. I totally did end it there. Heh. I'm going to try to get another installment up on Thursday. I thought it would be too mean to end this chapter here and then make y'all wait a whole week for more.

Up next: **Singe**. The Rogue has a decision to make: _Stay or go_. Both choices will have lasting consequences...

Any guesses?


	5. Singe

The four generous slugs of tequila and the feminine hand in Logan's pants made it hard to think so soon after the fights had ended. The Wolverine was strong in his mind, that powerful animal instinct tangled up with his own thoughts that were only slightly more rational. He could feel the internal shift. Bloodlust to carnal lust; the sweaty downward spiral to the second half of the fight-fuck equation. His blood was up. He needed to expend that energy to come down. Sex was his preferred way to do it.

It wasn't his first time with this particular woman on her knees in front of him; a curvy brunette with long silky hair that fell down her back in shiny waves. Her eyes were wrong though, blue not brown. When she came, however, she closed her eyes, and the spill of dark hair clenched in his fingers and dragging over his sweaty skin more than made up for it.

Her name was Cheyenne. He called her honey. He called them _all_ honey. They weren't friends. He knew her though, even outside of the sweet shuddering clench of her body. Shared a few drinks at the bar. Gave her shitty Grand Prix a jump once. He'd even done a favor for her and her toddler a time or two over the last few years. She typically repaid him with a home cooked meal rather than sex, and he appreciated that. Sex he could get anywhere.

She knew who he was and _what_ he was, but the only real personal knowledge she had about him was how he liked to get off. That's what he liked best about her, that and she didn't follow him with hungry, needy eyes, expecting more than he had to give. No strings on either side, just a straight up exchange of pleasure. He was pretty generous with the orgasms and in return she was generally up for whatever he wanted. He liked that about her, too.

Tonight he'd floated a new idea by her as they shared a drink before the fights. A few months back, he'd spent a long night with her and her friend. Left them tangled up together in a pleasure-soaked coma afterward, so he didn't really think she'd have a problem with someone joining them, but he also knew better than to assume where a woman was involved.

As it turned out, Cheyenne didn't mind. The idea intrigued her, especially after he'd made it clear that this particular friend was pretty damn skittish and it would strictly be watching _only_ , if she even showed up at all. In fact, he expressly forbade any effort to touch her at all. He explained, briefly, _gruffly_ , that the shy young woman in question was not only a good friend who was a little curious and a lot reckless, but also someone he'd promised to look out for.

Logan could see the thousand questions burning in her eyes but she knew better than to ask. She left him with a wet kiss and a dirty wink instead. What the Wolverine wanted, the Wolverine got, especially in matters of the flesh. In matters of the heart, however, things were infinitely more complicated.

Which is probably why his pulse kicked up an extra notch as Marie entered the small office.

He didn't even need to raise his head. He knew her scent, the cadence of her steps and rhythm of her breathing; even her heart beat a familiar tattoo in his ears. As she moved closer, navigating the warren of crammed shelves, he bent over the dark head bobbing in his lap, put his mouth by Chey's ear and whispered to her that his friend had joined them.

Her response was to suck harder for a moment and graze his thighs lightly with her nails through the dark, blood-spattered denim before pulling back until just the tip was between her pink lips. She swirled her tongue maddeningly, but he could see the question in her eyes.

 _You want me to stop?_

Logan shook his head, soundlessly tangling the fingers of one hand in her hair and pulling her closer, urging her to continue. Marie would be able to see them any moment now and something in him knew this had zero chance of working if the beginning was slow and awkward. He couldn't imagine a scenario where this got off the ground with stilted conversation and an awkward invitation. It wasn't the kind of thing that could be analyzed or planned. It was the kind of thing that demanded action. Just jump in and hang on for the ride.

If he could just hook her before she had a chance to throw up her usual walls and barriers, maybe she could just let it happen. Hell, she could even tell herself - _after_ \- that he'd never given her the chance to consent or protest, though that was a load of shit. It was her choice to show up in the first place. She could leave at any time, but then she was there, eyes wide with shock and he did the one thing he thought might actually keep her there.

He asked her to stay.

"Stay."

The soft word electrified the small, cramped space.

It wasn't an order. That she'd just defy outright. She was dying to start something, her scent thick with fox and spice and earth and pissed off female. He could smell her righteous anger. He didn't want to defuse that. He just wanted that fiery energy channeled in a different direction, and so he didn't order. He _asked_.

He'd never asked her for anything in all the years he'd known her. Never asked for anything for himself. Not once.

She used to ask him for things. A ride. A promise. To stay when all he wanted to do was get in the wind. But she'd changed. Closed up. Closed off. She hadn't asked him for anything since their frank conversation about the Cure. While she hadn't exactly asked for his blessing and he hadn't exactly given it, nothing had been the same after that.

And that rocky road had led them _here_ , to this moment, and now he was goddamn asking because he wasn't above trading on their history for a shot at _this_.

Logan wasn't even exactly sure what _this_ was, or what might happen if she stayed. In truth, he hadn't thought much beyond how to make it happen. The rest was just some pipedream too fragile and ephemeral to even imagine in detail. He only knew that he needed her to do this the way he needed air and freedom and the hunt; something vital to their continued survival.

It all hinged on if her desire was stronger than her need to get back at him. He knew she'd make him pay. What he didn't know was if she was reckless enough to take what she wanted, first.

She was wavering.

He was not.

"Stay," he asked again in response to her hesitation, feeling a hot rush of something indefinable when she finally nodded almost imperceptibly and took an unsteady step back, leaning against the wall for support.

She still hadn't looked away from his face, but for as much as he wanted to prolong that moment of erotic intimacy with Marie, he couldn't ignore the purely physical sensation of a hot mouth sucking rhythmically between his legs. When it took him deep and he felt his tip bump the back of her silky throat, he closed his eyes, grunting softly. Fuck. _Fuck._

The Wolverine was much too close to the surface to be appeased with heated glances across a cramped room. He needed the physical catharsis of orgasm. So much the better if the female he truly wanted was close enough to share that moment.

He'd never been this close to Marie when he was so openly aroused. Just the scent of her then was maddening, fogging his mind with lust; a red haze that made him want to rip and tear and thrust. Howl. Beg. Possess. Anything to make her acknowledge whatever it was that bound them together.

The two sides of his nature warred with each other, but the man won. Marginally. Instead of giving into the wholly physical sensation, he forced his eyes open to find Marie drinking in what details she could glean from her position. It wasn't ideal. The office was small and cramped and the space didn't allow for anything approaching a good vantage point.

Marie was almost directly behind Cheyenne, with a view of her back and his chest and face but not much else. The wild tumble of inky hair across his lap hid everything but the rhythmic rise and fall of her head as her mouth worked him. Still, it was hard to be disappointed, or to remain detached, as intense bolts of pleasure seared along his nerves with each swirling suck. And the knowledge that Marie was voluntarily watching it happen.

It was difficult to think, but somewhere in his hazy jumble of thoughts, he was wondering how Marie felt about it. Was it better or worse that she couldn't see? The moment of introspection was snatched away a second later. A wet tongue abruptly flickered into the sensitive slit at his tip and colors exploded behind his eyes, forcing a crude grunt from him. Christ, that was good.

When he lifted his head, the Rogue had surprised him again. Her eyes weren't where he expected. Instead, she was clocking all the little details that gave away far too much. It made him feel exposed in a way that the idea of her focus purely on the mouth between his legs did not.

He should have known. The Rogue wasn't exactly known for taking prisoners. She was ruthless, and this moment between them was a much battle of wills as any bloodbath with the Brotherhood had ever been. He realized she was here, but that her walls weren't exactly down. She was as defensive as ever, with the same uncanny innate ability she'd always had to find and exploit even the smallest chink in his armor. But tonight, he couldn't fight her and his own body too. His mind was too divided, and frankly the mouth on his cock felt too good to ignore.

He burned. But he also _watched_. Noted where Marie's eyes lingered. What secrets she stole for herself. Where her focus was. What details she observed. How she picked up on certain things that the women who'd come writhing under him had never even noticed.

Big picture first. _Get the lay of the land before you go in hot, kid._ It amused him to see her using the skills he'd taught her for something like _this._ He'd intended that lesson for an entirely different application. It irritated him too, because fuck her. This wasn't a goddamn strategic exercise to be deconstructed like a puzzle. He wanted her to _feel_ , not to _think_. But then, he rarely got what he wanted when it came to her. It pissed him off, but still, he watched her take it all in.

Rough-hewn planks, scarred and pitted under them. Heavy boots. Legs planted wide. Her eyes slid up his calves, skipping uncomfortably over the woman on her knees before settling on his hands. He caught her smirk as his fingers clenched tight on the peeling arm of the chair, but then the shuddering pleasure had his eyes squeezing shut. When he opened them again, her gaze was resting on the wild points of his hair, flattened down some now with the sweat from his exertions in the cage tonight.

She avoided his eyes and followed the hair on his head to the sweat beading at his temples, to the bristle along his jaw, and then it stopped there at the hollow of his stubbled throat. He didn't like how that made him feel. Some blend of uncertainty and the feeling that she was seeing too much.

He was breathing faster now than he had in the cage it and it had less to do with the woman on her knees and more to do with the woman watching from across the cluttered space.

Eyes dragging over his chest. Measuring the rise and fall. Could she tell his heart was damn near slamming out of his ribs? The pressure felt like an engine, crashing in his ears, keeping time with the steady, visceral throbbing between his legs.

He had no doubt she was paying attention, hearing every chuff of air Cheyenne forced from his lips, his every crude grunt and dirty groan as her head worked up and down. The silence when he swallowed hard. The husky pant of his breath. The way her presence made his hands shake.

Her eyes came to rest on his forearms, cabled tight with tension. Was she thinking about his claws? Wondering if they'd shoot out when he came? Fucking ridiculous.

That ludicrous idea almost made him laugh, but then the swirling pleasure pulled him under again. Marie should know better, having as much of him in her head as she did. Or maybe she just liked the way he looked in the chair, the casual sprawl of a man enjoying the purely physical aspect of getting his dick sucked before sex.

And why shouldn't he enjoy it? He'd fucking earned it tonight, taking punch after punch. Beating all challengers. Proving to them, to _her_ , that there was no one better. He'd paid for this moment with pain and blood and the desperation that drove him to places like this again and again.

She wouldn't let him catch her eye now, and that pissed him off, too. Instead he found himself looking for _her_ little details. She watched his hands the most, eyes jumping between the fingers clenched on the arm of the chair and the ones buried deep in the fall of Cheyenne's hair. She shuddered when he grunted. Her breath caught when he closed his eyes and panted, body knotted with pleasure. She seemed to particularly enjoy those moments where he struggled, hands clenched as he sweated and strained and tried like hell to keep from thrusting to orgasm in a warm, receptive mouth. He'd enjoy it, sure, but he had other plans tonight.

Marie's breathing was fast and shallow, and when he realized she wasn't as detached as he thought—that she was wetting her full pink lips every time he rocked forward pushing himself deeper into that lush, wet mouth, he was fucking done. It took the decision of when and how to come right out of his hands.

He shuddered, startled to have tipped too quickly over the edge, unable to keep from grunting with each wet pulse. Marie froze, silent, shocked into stillness by the raw carnality of such a stoic man caught in the grip of a powerful orgasm he couldn't control. Cheyenne startled too, but to her credit didn't pull away as he rode out the violent surges. When it was over, she left her forearms braced on his thighs and delicately spat a large mouthful of pearly ejaculate on the wooden floor between his spread legs.

Logan couldn't even look at Marie.

Everything was suddenly burning wildly out of control.

* * *

Up next: **Scorch**. The aftermath.


	6. Scorch

Uncurling the clenched fist he had in Cheyenne's hair, Logan gentled the touch on her scalp, more an apology than a caress. He liked women and generally didn't use one so roughly unless she'd indicated she was willing somewhere along the way.

 _Fuck._

Cheyenne turned to look at the girl who'd watched her pleasure the Wolverine, casually wiping her mouth on the back of her hand before giving Logan a look that he interpreted to mean: _Take care of your business here and get back to me._ He owed her an orgasm and she intended to collect. He didn't disagree. She pushed herself to her feet. "Gonna go get a drink, babe."

Logan gave her a little nod that said they weren't done but that he needed a minute here to talk. But mostly he just sat in the creaky old chair and caught his breath, a little disconcerted that he'd come too soon.

The Rogue, uncharacteristically, said nothing.

Cheyenne left without another word. Her heels clicked on the uneven floor. Painfully aware of Rogue's eyes on him, Logan swiped a heavy boot through the wet remnants of his orgasm. Where everything had been hidden before, he was completely exposed now; thick, moist cock half-hard and twitching with little aftershocks. He caught the last lingering drip with his thumb and licked it absently before tucking himself away, suddenly feeling acutely uncomfortable. Fly open, he watched Marie watch him still breathing hard and wondered what the fuck to say to her.

He hadn't thought this far ahead. Generally he didn't stick around long enough for there to be much post-orgasm awkwardness. It was obvious Marie was still furious. And aroused. Christ, horny and angry. It was definitely a combination that worked for him, but he couldn't even begin to guess about the state of her emotional landscape. Her scent told him she needed to come about as badly as she needed to tear a strip off his hide. She was jumpy in her own skin and twitchy as all hell, fire burning in her eyes like he'd never seen. He liked it, but it also made the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

She looked from the dark stain seeping into the dry wood to the scruff of thick hair advertising his masculinity quite clearly from his open fly and finally met his gaze from under the brim of the beat up cowboy hat tipped low over her face.

"Impressive." Her mocking tone rubbed him the wrong way and he felt his features harden. Marie was obviously on the offensive because she was overwhelmed, probably by what she'd seen and how it had made her feel, and by the fact that he'd issued the invitation to begin with, but he wasn't her goddamn punching bag. And he wasn't giving up, either. She was a tough nut to crack. He figured it'd take more than a few tries.

"Mmph." A grunt in reply because that comment was beneath her, and because it touched his pride, and because there wasn't enough space in this little room for World War III if he said what he was really thinking.

"Thanks so much for the invite, sugar. I always wanted to be just another prop in your fucked-up post-fight sex fantasy." Her eyes narrowed when he jerked as if she'd struck him, but she was still watching his face. That was something, at least. Especially considering his belt and pants were open and showing off everything from belly button to pubic hair. "Cage bunnies not enough to get you off anymore? Just how many does it take to fuck the Wolverine into oblivion these days?"

Oblivion? As if that were even possible? Peace was as elusive as it had ever been. The realization only put him in a blacker mood.

"Hey, you got this all wrong, kid." He hadn't done this to taunt her. He'd been trying to _give_ her something.

"You really expect me to believe that?" She hissed the words at him. "I thought you were smarter than that."

That hurt. He took that shit personal, same as any other below the belt blow, and fired one back just as hard.

"And I thought you had more balls. Guess we were both wrong." He blew out hard, doing up his pants and buckling them with blood-spattered hands, suddenly wanting as many layers between them as he could get. Jesus. How had this night gotten so fucked up?

Sex, for him, was about release. For her, it was clearly about something else entirely. He'd made a serious miscalculation. He was suddenly aware this was way more intimate than he'd imagined it would be. He'd given away far too much and he was unsure, now, where to go from here. He abruptly felt vulnerable and he was aware she was awash in what she'd seen and what it might mean - or _not_ mean - and it all suddenly felt like a very bad idea.

"Bullshit. I'm here, aren't I?"

"Yeah," he said tiredly, reaching for the bottle of cheap tequila and taking a long pull. "But you didn't—" she hadn't really been a part of it. Hadn't opened herself to it like he'd hoped. Hadn't purposefully given any of herself in return or accepted what he'd offered in the spirit it was meant. Instead, it had just been one giant clusterfuck. "Look. This was a bad idea."

The look on her face told him that was the wrong thing to say. Shit.

Everything he did to defuse the situation only seemed to make it worse. Story of his life.

"Why? Can't handle it?" She purposefully eyed the smear of ejaculate staining the planks between his feet, letting him see her do it just to push his buttons, which was both stupid and dangerous.

He shrugged, wondering if she'd have succeeded in goading him into a fight if he hadn't just had one of the most intense orgasms he could remember. He was _still_ slumped in post-orgasm lethargy. As it was, he was itching to let her have it, but not only would that be counterproductive to his endgame goal, he was suddenly tired of banging his head against this particular wall of denial and feminine futility. And he was still dismayed and somewhat shaken that Marie's presence had affected his considerable restraint. He did not lose control of himself with women. Ever.

That he hadn't once considered what her presence might do to _him_ pricked at him too. That was one damn big blind spot. He should have known better.

"Ain't me dyin' to come so bad I can hardly keep still," he observed. Her twitchiness was making him uncomfortable and he wasn't the sort of man who pulled his punches.

For a moment he thought she was going to fight him and then she threw her head back and laughed, a brittle sound that probably revealed more about the depth of her pain than anything she'd said so far. "Sure, sugar. Whyever would I wanna pass on _that_? Because, hey, it worked so well for _you_."

"Shut up." It was more a growl than anything else.

She carried on, too furious to stop even though she knew she should. "Maybe that's what I need, huh? Some stranger to stick their tongue between my legs because getting drunk and getting off is easier than making a dadgum meaningful connection with another person."

"Nah." Logan uncoiled from the chair and rose, suddenly a menacing presence in the confined space as he loomed over her small frame. Marie would have taken a step back, but she was already against the wall. There was no place to go. No escape to be had. "S'better your way. Why bother with people at all when runnin' keeps 'em all away?" He ignored her gasp. "Ya know, your skin ain't a prison. It's a goddamn excuse. You're a coward, darlin'." Too far, he knew. But fuck her. She was really pissing him off now.

"And you're a cold-hearted bastard."

"Maybe. I ain't wrong, though. Hell, I bet you a bottle of the good stuff that you haven't a meaningful _connection_ with anyone since you shot yourself up with the Cure."

"Go fuck yourself." Her face was red. She was angry. And ashamed. And embarrassed, because they both knew he was right.

"Honey, I'm gonna go fuck that girl waitin' for me at the bar and you're gonna go home to a cold, empty bed, so tell me again which one of us is gonna be fuckin' themselves tonight."

"I hate you," she spat at him, reeling.

"No you don't. You hate that you're too scared to tag along and watch."

That struck a nerve, he could see it on her face — her eyes blazed but her lips were trembling.

"You… you—"

"Christ, kid, you really think this was about me gettin' off? Or tryin' to hurt you in some way?"

She stared at him with wide, wary eyes. "What then?"

He sighed, pushing a hand through his wild hair in frustration. "Fuck if I know. I thought you'd want it. And that I could give it to you." To be honest, he'd thought it would be pretty easy. Casual sex had never been a problem. He should have known nothing involving Marie was ever casual or easy. "But if you'd rather spit in my face than take it, then that's up to you."

It was a butchered, disjointed explanation at best. Emotionally charged conversations were not his forte. More to the point, how could he put into words what he didn't understand himself? But something must have pierced that armor of hers, something must have gotten through because the fight seemed to go out of her.

She was still guarded, but the aggression had bled from her stance. They shared the same small square meter of space and yet, an ocean may as well have been between them. He could feel it, cold and dark and bitter.

Logan forced himself to take a step back when all the Wolverine wanted to do was press his advantage.

Marie gave him one last uncertain look and bailed, too shaken to even stalk away with her hips swinging and her chin held high. Instead she lit out of there like hellhounds were snapping at her heels.

He turned to go, suddenly feeling strangely deflated. Another night shot to hell. Another run-in with the kid that ended in flames. Par for the course lately. Jesus, he should be more enthusiastic about the impending sex, at least, but he just felt weary. Drained, right down to his bones.

* * *

Up next: **Embers**. Man, I just love the hell out of damaged people making questionable choices that wind up having some pretty serious consequences. So, now these two are going to have to figure out how to go forward from here…


	7. Embers

**Author's note:** I know it's a bit early this week, but I wanted to get this up before the holiday crazy is in full swing. My WolverineMuse is quick to point out that Canadian Thanksgiving was several weeks back, but he's willing to roll with it for now. (And because my RogueMuse threatened to replace his bourbon with green bean casserole if he didn't play nice.) For those who celebrate: Happy Thanksgiving. Enjoy the time with your family. And if there's eggnog, have one for me! Onward!

* * *

It was six days before Logan saw Marie again. Six long days and even longer nights, where he wondered if he'd pushed their unspoken connection beyond the place where it could reasonably recover. He'd been trying to make things better for her, not worse. The idea that he might have damaged something weighed heavily on his mind.

Marie found him on the dock, smoking and watching the red sun sinking low over the glassy water. She smelled like the road; wind and spice and stale fast food. Wherever she'd been sure wasn't local. Clinging to her hair and clothes was a strange cocktail of unfamiliar scents. The acrid tang of a bar, too— probably a lot of bars, he thought — sat over the top of it all. The faint purple he could see under her bloodshot eyes said she'd been doing a lot of something that wasn't sleeping.

He could relate.

Plopping a bottle down between them, she sat, not looking at his face, but not purposefully avoiding it, either. As awkward as things were between them, it was difficult not to appreciate the spectacular sunset. A few more minutes and the violent crimson sear would melt into rose and peach and soften into the longer, indigo shadows that he particularly enjoyed.

Naturally, Marie liked the wild riot of colors best, those fiery moments just before the sun sank below the horizon. Logan liked the stillness directly afterwards. Twilight was cold beer and fireflies, a warm dock under him and good hunting and a dozen other pleasant memories that held him through the darker hours.

They sat in stillness until it was over. When the last golden rays disappeared into the water, it felt like some kind of bell had been rung. The start of the next round.

"Hey, kid." Without taking the cigar from his mouth, he grunted in the direction of the bottle. "What's that?" Four Roses Single Barrel. Not outrageously expensive, but damn good bourbon all the same.

"Beware women bearing bottles, huh?"

"Depends."

"On?"

"Intent, I reckon. Bribe? Excuse to get drunk? Molotov cocktail?" He tongued the stub of the cigar in thought and finally offered up, "Apology?"

Marie snorted at that. "You wish, cowboy."

He didn't, actually. Even a failed attempt at something generally still yielded useful information. They'd both called each other on some shit and delivered a few painful home truths, but he didn't really think she'd done anything to warrant owing him an apology. Then again, who the fuck knew what went on in her head anymore?

"Mmph." If she wanted to get wasted, that was up to her. Damn shame to kill a bottle of the good stuff that way, but she was a big girl.

"I always pay my debts, sugar." She nudged the bottle past neutral ground and onto his side. As she did, his words from the other night came back to him.

 _Hell, I bet you a bottle of the good stuff that you haven't had a meaningful connection with anyone since you shot yourself up with the Cure._

Well, shit.

So, that's what this was. An admission about the nature of her meaningful connections. That he hadn't expected. It rocked him back.

"Marie, you —"

"Take it," she interrupted, her voice hard as glass. "Connections, yes. Meaningful?" The bitterness in her tone was sharp enough to make him wince. "Not enough to win me that bet. And since my skin came back? Not even that."

He'd known that something pretty heavy had to have happened somewhere along the line. That much was obvious. She'd changed so much from how she used to be, but he hadn't dug too deeply into the reasons why. Probably as much because she clearly didn't want him to pry as much as he wasn't prepared for the answer. Apparently it was thornier than he'd imagined.

"Fuck." Not an eloquent response, but a heartfelt one.

"Yeah." Her reply was just as succinct.

He appreciated her ability to explain something clearly and concisely without actually having to have a long messy conversation about it. Neither of them were the type to spill their guts. It took an act of god to get much from the stoic Wolverine, and the Rogue — well, she was buttoned up just as tightly these days.

Logan wasn't sure 'thanks' was an appropriate response to the bottle and its accompanying revelation.

She'd as good as told him she'd dropped her guard after having the Cure and whatever had happened when she did had fucked her up badly enough that even the idea of being touched now was terrifying to her.

She'd willingly kick an ass, sure, but a touch? A handshake? A kiss? No way. The Rogue had made it crystal clear that she didn't welcome anyone's intimate touch, and if someone tried, she'd make damn sure they regretted it. Generally with a verbal bashing and a slew of bruises that took a long time to heal. She wanted the memory to last.

"You'd tell me if someone out there needed killin'."

It was somewhere between a demand and a plea. Christ, if someone had hurt her—

"It's — it's not _that_." Her inflection implied that whatever ' _it_ ' was ranked pretty high up there along with _'that'_. Maybe not an assault — or a rape, he forced himself to acknowledge — but probably something she considered as painful. "Look, I took care of it, alright? I'm fine. Really."

"Yeah, you're a fuckin' poster child. All smiles and rainbows shootin' out your ass."

"Stow it, sugar." She made a production of scooting away.

"What?" he grunted.

"Just wanna be out of the kill zone when that bolt of lightning comes down and nukes your hypocritical ass."

That almost made him smile. His chest felt lighter than it had in days, though he realized they hadn't really solved anything. It was mostly just good to lay eyes on her and to know that things hadn't been damaged beyond repair. She was still here, willing to make an effort. He was too, which said a lot.

"Pretty sure you're safe, darlin'. The Almighty only fucks around with the ones worth savin'."

He could see right away his throw-away comment had fallen flat. Marie wasn't deeply religious and she wasn't morally offended, but she didn't like the idea of him as a lost cause. He honestly hadn't meant it that way. He had made his peace years ago. He and whatever higher power existed had mutually agreed to turn their backs on one another and that was that. Or at least, that's how he'd come to think of it over the decades.

He didn't like the idea of Marie adopting his theory, however. And he really didn't like seeing the glimmer of warmth fade from her eyes.

"Ah, hell. Maybe I'll have that drink now." Logan cracked the bottle, running a thumb appreciatively over the label before taking a sip. "Goddamn, that's good enough to do twice." He took another swallow and moved to pass the bottle over, but then he hesitated. "You eaten today?"

"I murdered a box of donuts somewhere around the state line."

"Close enough." Once upon a time she'd have pulled the bottle from his fingers. Now she waited for him to set it on the dock and pull his hand away before she picked it up. He hated that she did that. And that it was almost automatic, now.

He also recognized an olive branch when he saw one. Rogue was a proud woman, strong and reckless and more than a little wild, but she was a good woman, too. Smart. Selfless. Honest, even when it hurt— though she was far more brutal with herself than she'd ever been with him. They passed the bottle back and forth several times watching as the sky faded from a warm apricot to a rosy plum, thinking about the past and present.

All of that was underscored by the knowledge that she'd been sweet on him, once upon a time. Over the years it had morphed into this thing that neither of them had really bothered to define. It was enough to know it was there. Or it had been until she'd sat beside him on this dock and told him she'd watched him come.

In response, he'd made an offer that had set all of this in motion. Logan had been doing a lot of thinking about that lately. Trying to figure it out. Not the 'how' as much as the 'why'.

The awareness she was attracted to him had played a part in it. Marie found it arousing to watch him have sex, and he couldn't deny that knowledge did something for him in a major way. And god knew the animal approved of pretty much anything that put a sexually aroused Marie in close proximity. Just because she was afraid of physical intimacy didn't mean the body's natural drive for sex diminished.

Every time he saw her lately, she made him think of an overripe peach. The kind that rends so sweetly when bitten; sweet on the tongue, juicy lips, dripping chin, sticky fingers…

"Quit hogging the bottle, cowboy."

Logan looked down and realized that somewhere along the way he'd reclaimed the bottle and made a pretty decent dent in it— or maybe _she_ had? Beside him, Marie swayed a little as she made a 'gimme' gesture with a gloved hand.

"You drunk?" he grunted, setting the bottle between them so she could comfortably take it.

"Nah. Just buzzin' pretty good because the donuts ran out hours ago and I could eat a cow, horns and all."

"Heh." That did make him smile. "Long drive?"

He usually asked. It was part of the game. She always evaded. "Yep. Feels like I hit every pothole between here and… _there_." Her grin wasn't quite so bright. She hated questions probing into her mysterious disappearances, but he couldn't quite seem to stop asking them. Even now. "And I thought it might help."

"Help?"

"Yeah. Dutch courage, you know?"

"Fuck that. Darlin', you got enough Mississippi courage for the both of us."

Her laugh rang out over the water. He so rarely heard that from her anymore. It warmed him from the inside out.

"There's that silver tongue that charms all the girls," she teased.

He grunted. "Ain't my mouth they want." It was his body. That, and he had a big dick and knew how to use it — and the fact that the sharing of both was typically preceded by pounding other men bloody in front of an unruly crowd.

Mother Nature could be a bitch, but you had to give it to her; the system she created worked damn well for a man like himself. Females wanted to mate with the alpha. That was her law, not his. Though he wasn't above using it to his advantage when it suited him.

"I don't know about that. I bet it's what Cheyenne wanted."

Logan's mouth hung open slightly at her candor.

"Shit. Did I say that out loud?" Marie flushed. "Oops. I guess maybe I should have gone with 'more than a little buzzed.' Sorry. I haven't had a decent meal since Greensboro."

"Indiana or North Carolina?"

Marie ignored him. "How much crow did you have to eat to get back in her good graces, anyway?"

"Enough." Two drinks at the bar. And four orgasms, but it wasn't much of a hardship with the scent of Marie's arousal burned into his brain. All he had to do was think about how Marie had wet her lips each time he pumped into Chey's silky throat and he was half gone already.

"Figures." Marie rolled her eyes.

"What?"

"That I can barely get two words out of you now when last week you were Mr. Full Disclosure."

"Mmph."

She took another drink and when she set the bottle down, he took it away from her with a warning look and a knowing expression.

"Hey."

"Slow down, kid. Too much more and I'm gonna have to carry your ass back. You're heavier than you look."

That made her laugh again. "Guess I just better get on with saying it then, huh?"

"Sayin' what?"

"That you're an arrogant ass and a surly son-of-a-bitch and I was mad as hell at you for makin' that offer, and madder still that I took it."

"Shit," he muttered.

She took a deep breath and charged on. "But the real truth is that I got off thinking about what I saw every night since then—" his eyebrows shot to his hairline. "So I didn't want to you to be, you know, thinking I hated your guts or tying yourself up in knots or whatever— if, if you were…"

"Jesus _fuck_."

"I know—"

" _Every_ night?"

She nodded, blushing bright red. "Every night. Sometimes in the morning, too. In the bath. Once in the driver's seat on the side of the road in bum fuck Georgia when I couldn't stop thinking about it."

"Fuck," he said again, adjusting his obvious erection.

"So in the spirit of, you know, full disclosure, — and because I hate owing anyone a dadgum thing — I felt it was only fair to put my cards on the table, too."

"Marie—"

"Look, I know we don't talk about this, but that night in the torch, you didn't leave me. You came. You saved me. I know this isn't the same thing. I know you don't need me to save you and it's not about comparing those two experiences or paybacks or whatever the hell else— But for what it's worth, I didn't want you thinking I was gonna let you twist alone in the wind, putting yourself out there and not getting anything back because that's just shitty. That's — that's not how I am. How we are."

He nodded, unsure what to say to that heartfelt display of loyalty.

"And before I lose my nerve, and maybe the maple bars," He smiled a little at her self-deprecating humor because she'd hit the bottle pretty hard for someone who'd only had donuts in the past twenty or so hours, "I wanted to say that I'd be okay with it if you ever felt like inviting me again sometime."

He was too shocked to even temper his reply. "Because it worked so well the last time? Jesus Christ. Maybe we should just eviscerate each other now and be done with it." An orgasm, even a damn good one, wasn't worth the emotional carnage the aftermath had inspired.

"I liked what I saw," she countered quietly. "A lot."

"Yeah." That had never been in question.

She swallowed and her voice wavered, but she didn't hesitate. "I like that you knew I would. I like that you issued that damn invitation knowing full well I'd wanna fuck your shit up and you still had the balls to do it anyway." He smirked a bit at that and her voice grew softer. "And I especially like that you weathered that storm and still managed to give me something nice."

 _Nice?_ That wasn't the word he'd use. He might have given her another negative response despite the heat in her words if she hadn't turned and caught his eye.

"I liked what I saw," she said again, her voice thrumming with quiet intensity. "And how it felt. And how it feels _now_."

"Mmph." He could feel his resolve slipping and already knew he was going to capitulate. But it was worth drawing it out because she hadn't been this open with him in years. Who knew what else she might give up before he finally relented.

"Sure, I was mad. And embarrassed." He winced a little at that, wondering about the depth and breadth of her prior sexual experience. "It was a little scary and a lot awkward, but… good. So, _so_ good, sugar." Her eyes gleamed. "Crazy hot, but still…. safe." He could see something in her give way at that last word and understood the silent subtext. Sex hadn't ever felt safe. That sold it, right there. "Look, I know it's weird."

"So?" He shrugged. "S'worked for us so far."

She gave him a look clearly asking for further exposition on that subject.

Logan sighed.

"S'fuckin' weird you saw whatcha did in that bar in Laughlin and decided hitchin' with me was a good idea. S'weird you and me were okay after I stuck ya, too." She made a protesting sort of sound, clearly remembering the details of the night he'd jammed his claws in her chest, but he wasn't done. "And it's fuckin' weird with as much of me as you got rattlin' around up there that you and me are _still_ good." That floored him even now.

"Fair enough."

"Some shit don't make sense. It just works."

"I guess." He gave her a look that said her noncommittal comment had no place in a discussion this deep. "I mean, that's kinda what was thinkin' on as I drove." He understood it wasn't the sex as much as the rest of it. "By the time I got there—"

"There?" he tossed out, wondering how far he could push.

"If I tell you, will you invite me again?"

She had too much pride to beg, but she wasn't above offering a straight up trade.

Interesting.

"No." She must have been pretty drunk, because disappointment flashed clearly on her face before she was able to school her features into a neutral expression. Logan had to smother his smile as he took a deep pull off the bottle and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. "That's yours if you want it either way, kid," he clarified.

He was taking a big risk dismissing his advantage, but he'd found he preferred those secrets freely given. If she wanted to share because something internal drove her, then fine. But he wasn't about to pressure her into it by withholding something he knew she wanted badly. No way. That skated too close to straight up manipulation, especially for something so private.

He saw the surprise in her eyes, and the warmth.

"I'll take that deal, cowboy."

"Thought you might."

For a long time, neither of them said anything. The sky bled from plum to violet to an inky indigo as the song of the crickets and frogs tapered away. The wind picked up, rustling the reeds along the shore and rocking the dock under them with gentle ripples. When the first stars began to appear, Marie pushed herself to her feet.

"N'Orleans," she drawled, automatically widening her stance as the dock shifted under her.

Logan simply nodded. The tip of his cigar glowed red in the darkness.

That one little answer got his attention even more than the erotic nature of her previous confession. He hadn't been consciously trying to trade physical intimacy for emotional intimacy, but he wasn't about to turn it down, either. Certainly not when she offered it up freely and without coercion. That was an exchange he could live with.

What he'd done, letting her see those private things— not the sex, but the private details about himself — that had been hard for him. He didn't like her throwing that in his face, but now that she'd decided to reciprocate by doing the hard thing for _her_ … he realized a precedent had been set.

It was done.

Cemented, now.

A contract had been established; the shuddering of his body, his loss of control and shaking hands, in exchange for her secret confessions whispered in the dark.

And now, all that remained was finding out how many times they could play the game before the truths revealed became too much to bear.

* * *

Up next: **Kindle**. So, the bargain has been made. Gold star for anyone who guesses where they wind up next.


	8. Kindle

The strange equilibrium Logan and Marie had reached that night on the dock lasted nine days. They had managed to sustain it through a typical week at the school and an atypical mission. The calm lasted through the gradual hormonal fall to the metallic hint of blood, accompanied by the sharper side of Marie's tongue. Soon the glorious rise and agonizing peak would follow, and that slow sultry drawl and swinging hips would transition into a beautiful slickness and a full, gorgeous scent that announced, in a way that could not be ignored, that she was lush and open. Ready.

It was a rhythm that Logan largely ignored and rarely noted in any detail — except to absent himself during that scant handful of days her scent literally drove him to distraction — though he paid closer attention now. The anticipation of another erotic encounter was growing with each day that passed. He would issue another invitation soon and he knew there was no way he could endure the luscious scent of her fertility while spending himself in another woman.

With the Wolverine on board, that was a risky enough endeavor as it was. Adding a primal drive he was unable to resist into the mix was pure madness.

Soon, he thought again, watching the Rogue complete a post-flight check on the Blackbird from across the hangar while he and Pete relocated a mountain of supplies and munitions. The intense physical exertion helped some, but didn't really take the edge off. Not with his mutation working to replenish what he lost. He needed a different sort of catharsis.

For as much as Logan was a man to let things evolve as nature intended, he recognized the need for some forethought about what would follow his dirty invitation. At the very least, he needed some vague plan to frame his runaway carnal thoughts into a semblance of convention. He realized he'd gotten lucky last time. Marie had happened to stumble across him at just the right time. The location hadn't exactly been ideal, but they hadn't been interrupted, either.

He didn't think she was ready to join him in a hotel room. Not yet. Maybe not at all. That not only felt too staged, but carried the weight of too many unspoken expectations. His apartment was out for the same reason, and he couldn't see Marie being comfortable in a lot of the places he normally took a few minutes of stolen pleasure. She was his friend, and that put her above dirty back-alley fucks and cramped bathrooms with rowdy drunks knocking around in the adjacent stall or hammering on the door. Manager's offices and shadowy alcoves might do for a while, but even that was pushing it. It was not a problem with an easy solution.

He turned the idea over as he worked. The notion of fucking some barfly on the seat of his truck while an aroused Marie sat a foot away was ludicrous and uncomfortably exciting in a way that made him feel both guilty and turned on. He suddenly missed his old camper that had been destroyed years ago. Close without being cramped. Private without being intimate...

Pete noticed the strange expression on his face and chuckled when his searching comments drew a gruff, "Fuck off. More work n'less yappin'," from the usually stoic Wolverine.

Logan threw himself into the job at hand and firmly pushed thoughts of the coming encounter from his mind.

~oOo~

"Hey."

Marie jumped a little at Logan's husky greeting, turning from where she was pulling billowing whites off a clothesline and tucking them into a basket at her feet. The mansion had a well-appointed laundry room but Marie was a country girl through and through and swore by drying things the old-fashioned way whenever possible. She always just shrugged and said she could smell the sunshine on them.

Logan was inclined to agree. Occasionally he could catch the scent of it on her skin. He tried not to think about Marie's body wrapped in crisp white sheets, warmed by the sun.

"Hey there, sugar." She poked her head out from behind a sheet as it whipped forward in a slow rolling wave. "Thanks."

"For what?"

"Puttin' out your cigar before you came up here. I'd hate to have to kick your ass in front of the others, but nobody messes with my whites."

"Yes, ma'am."

He didn't smile, but the warmth touched his eyes.

He knew she was particular about things that touched her skin. He also knew she was just teasing. Mostly. She'd told him once that she knew he didn't remember his mama, but that there were things he did automatically that told her he'd been raised right. He hadn't realized at the time what a compliment that had been, coming from a woman raised in the deep South.

"What's up?" She folded a shirt against her midsection, smoothing a hand from breastbone to belly before adding it to the basket. "You got that look."

"What look's that, darlin'?"

"Like a long tailed cat in a room full of rockers."

"Mmph."

"Suit yourself. You always do anyway." Marie wiped at the sweat on her brow and grinned at him. "It's hot as a freshly fucked fox out here today." He huffed in amusement. "That's one thing I miss. That and mama's sweet tea." She sighed. "The air seems to move here, but there's no _breeze_. Know what I mean?"

"No," he said curtly, as unfamiliar with Mississippi as he was with sweet tea— and all of that was a world away from the alpine forest that seemed to be the place he felt most comfortable. She knew damn well he hadn't come all the way out here to talk to her about the weather.

His irritation must have bled through clearly enough, causing a smile to tug at the corner of her lips.

"I guess that temper's a hard dog to keep on the porch, cowboy."

That made him chuckle. Her way of using a colloquialism to roundaboutly call him on something without putting him directly on the spot was one of the quirks he'd always liked about her. It was like a strange sort of shorthand that was somewhere between the language the man spoke and the language of the animal.

"Yeah," he said, owning it.

"So…?"

That was another thing he liked about her. Sometimes she went right after him and called him on his shit. She faced up to the proverbial firing squad without so much as a blindfold or a cigarette. She had a strong, feminine power about her that struck a primal chord in him. Some things, private things, scared the shit out of her, but she had grit and steel and more damn tenacity than anyone he'd ever met. He couldn't help but admire that, even when it was pissing him off.

"I'm fightin' tonight."

"And?"

She could pretend nonchalance all she wanted. He could hear her heart race and tipped his head to catch her eye.

"You comin'?" The word choice was deliberate.

"I don't know about _that_ , but I'm up for watchin', sugar."

The blush on her nearly killed him. Jesus.

"You know that dive out on 21?"

"Just past the fish place that burned last winter?"

Logan nodded, a little disturbed by her familiarity with a fight bar that was pretty much known only by word of mouth. It was a test, and he couldn't quite work out if she'd passed or failed. "Yeah. Fights start at ten."

It seemed slightly ridiculous to be having this discussion with her in the bright afternoon sunshine while she took in her washing. The unspoken message was clear. They would not be arriving or leaving together. Logan had little use for any laws but his own, however, even he couldn't imagine sitting next to Marie in silence on the long ride back after he'd just fucked the hell outta some girl in front of her. Evidently even the Wolverine had limits. At least, when it came to _her_.

And to be honest, he really wasn't interested in deconstructing what happened afterwards, blow by blow. It was enough that Marie was present when it happened — and that she _liked_ it— at least enough to do it again, which was really all that mattered.

"Logan?" She wasn't looking at him, her gaze was focused on a casual white skirt with little eyelets. One of his favorites. She usually wore it with boots and a denim jacket over a t-shirt and sometimes his old cowboy hat.

"Yeah?"

"Do you think we should maybe have some, I dunno, ground rules or something if we're gonna make a habit outta this?"

The Wolverine didn't do rules at a matter of course, but he understood it might make her feel less anxious. He shrugged. "Darlin', I invited you there to watch, not join in." He hadn't imagined her playing an active — or even _interactive_ part. "I won't touch ya. I won't let anyone else touch ya. I'll keep ya safe if you wanna touch yourself. You don't gotta worry." It was sex, not rocket science. Nature had a way of working itself out, at least on that front.

"Lawd!" Her eyes were wide and round and full of a dark fire he'd rarely let himself even imagine. "What about— what about a safeword? You know, just in case?"

"In case of what? Fifty shades of bullshit? Nobody's gonna keep you there, darlin'. You don't wanna see somethin', don't look. Hell, walk away. Whichever. The invitation was to watch, not direct the action. I'm not a fuckin' puppet." Something about those words made her twist up that white skirt in her gloved hands. The predator in Logan zeroed in on that action, something about her body language making him press when he might have backed off. "What? You wanna drive that train? Tell me how to get off?"

Her response had surprised him. He had imagined that she might enjoy an intimate look at what he liked and _how_ he liked it and, maybe, to cast herself in the role of his partner when she replayed it in her mind, after. He hadn't expected that she might want a larger degree of control, or a say in the content.

He wasn't sure how he felt about that.

"NO!" She swallowed, taking a minute to rein herself in and compose a response that wasn't so emotionally charged. "No. I mean, that's not really how I pictured it. If I could be invisible, I would."

"Fuck that." That would deny him the pleasure of her reactions. His offer to let her watch hadn't been selfless. Surely, she knew that.

"You know what I mean," she chided. He did, now. She wanted to be invisible to the women. Not to him. Interesting.

"But…?"

"It's not really a 'but'. Not like you mean. Some things interest me more than others, that's all."

He wasn't a performing monkey, but she had to know he wasn't going to let that go. And to be honest, the idea that she didn't want to be a completely passive observer made the slow, heavy roil in his belly shift lower; a congested, buzzy sort of sensation that was precursor to the full erection he'd have if he thought too much more about Marie taking a more active part in their erotic little game. It certainly brought it out of simple voyeurism and into another arena entirely.

"Fair enough." He stepped closer, until they were concealed between two sheets that effectively walled off the rest of the world. In the heat of the midday sun, he watched gooseflesh rise on the strip of skin between her shirt and her gloves. If just his proximity drew such a reaction from her, imagine how responsive a lover she'd be? He made a low noise, somewhere between a growl and a groan. "Maybe it ain't so much drivin' the train as it is lettin' me know where you might like it to go?"

"Gawd," she shuddered, flushing a bright pink.

"I ain't makin' promises, kid." Logan chafed at the idea of this inexperienced slip of a girl giving him any sort of erotic direction when she was too afraid to participate in the act herself, but this wasn't only about him. Marie had to get something out of this too, and the motivation for that wasn't purely altruistic. The Wolverine needed to hook her real good and make damn sure she wanted to do it again. And again. And _again_. "Might be open to suggestion though, under the right circumstances."

"Is that right?"

Logan nodded. Once.

"And those circumstances might be…?"

His expression was wholly predatory. "That you have the balls to tell me straight up, right here, right now, what you wanna see tonight. Otherwise, I pick." He was pretty confident in his ability to know what she'd like, but he still felt like it wouldn't hurt to hear it from her. He wanted it to be so damn good she couldn't walk away. And he wanted her coming back for more.

"What about the, uh, girl. Doesn't she get a say?" She was breathing harder now, somewhere between aroused and pissed. Leaning towards pissed, he thought.

Logan shrugged. "Not usually. Mostly I just do what I want." And he assumed, quite correctly, that his partners typically got what they wanted on his way to satisfying his own desires. He knew that annoyed Marie, but that cocksure attitude was in part what drew the women to him. They recognized his power and wanted to feel it for themselves. They wanted to submit to that raw, male force. They came to him not in _spite_ of that attitude, but _because_ of it.

Marie was proud and strong and he knew that would rub her the wrong way. He also knew she felt it too, and that's what was really pissing her off.

"And that _works_?" He wondered if she had any idea her hand was clenched into a fist. They were probably overdue for a fight. It had been a while since their last real go-round.

"Yeah," he offered without a shred of remorse or regret. He wasn't even gloating. It was a pure statement of fact. If she didn't like it, too bad. He didn't make the rules. He merely exploited the ones Nature had made that seemed to lean quite heavily in his favor.

He could see her screwing up her courage to respond. Logan was prepared for something along the lines of: _I wanna see you do it from behind, sugar. Rough. Pull her hair. Pin her hands._ Maybe something edgy that skated pretty close to actual violence. She was primed for a fight and that's generally what women expected from him. A good, hard fuck from someone who made no excuses for what he was and what he wanted. And generally, that's pretty much how he wanted it too. Hot as hell. Dirty. Sweaty. Wild. He had few limits and appreciated the same quality in his sexual partners.

"Tender," Marie finally blurted out.

"What?" For a moment, Logan couldn't comprehend her meaning, it was so far outside the realm of expected possibilities.

"Tender," she said again, and he wondered if maybe her answer had less to do with what she really wanted to see and more to do with trying to push him out of his comfort zone. "Not— not lovemaking. That implies emotion. I'm not an idiot. But soft, you know? Slow. Tender, like..."

"Like...?" he prompted, when she trailed off and fell silent, probably reading something in his expression. Good, because he was hoping his face was in agreement with his mind and broadcasting a very clear: _What the ever-lovin' fuck?_

"Maybe like a first time. Like _that_."

A truly disturbing thought suddenly occurred to him. "Jesus Christ. Tell me you ain't a virgin, kid."

Marie threw her head back and laughed until her eyes were wet. When she slowed and met his horrified gaze, her peals of silvery laughter rang out again until she finally stopped, breathing hard, and wiped the wetness from her eyes.

"NO! God, no!" Another giggle bubbled up. "You should have seen the look on your face, though."

"Mmph." Likely, there was a touch of murder in his eyes. Probably something darker, too. Something he didn't have any intention of analyzing too closely. The rending of her body. Virgin blood. A claim that couldn't be undone. He couldn't even think about those things without coming apart at the seams.

Another laugh spilled out of those full lips and his frown deepened. "Sorry. Sorry!"

It was probably partly the excuse she'd given, and partly it just helped dispel the tension of an uncomfortable discussion.

"You shittin' me?"

"Geez, Logan. I lost it years ago. Move on, already. I have."

"Not _that_." He clenched his jaw. "Tender?" he scoffed. His tone said: _Have you lost your fucking mind?_ "And you think I can do that after I've been _fightin'_?"

"Yes." She didn't say it like a dare, she said it like a home truth. And that spooked him. Bad.

" _That's_ what you wanna see?" _Really?_ He was stunned. Stunned and uneasy. That was one tall goddamn order.

Her blush was back, but she didn't flinch away from the intensity of his stare. "Yes."

"Why?"

She didn't answer and he knew the reason. He wasn't playing by the rules of their unspoken contract. Her confessions came _after_. He had to pay for them first with secrets of his own. _Shit._

Stalemate.

Finally he shrugged. "Fine. But like I said, I can't promise nothin', darlin'. Soft n'sweet generally ain't what women are lookin' to get outta me."

Her color rose, but this time it wasn't with embarrassment. "Newsflash, sugar. You just told me that you did pretty much whatever the hell you wanted with those women."

Damn her. He _had_ said that.

"Shit," he grunted, reluctantly conceding the point.

She'd trumped him and she knew it. That sense of power around her seemed to swell and she … _brightened_ … somehow. Wild and vital. It was intense. On par with her demeanor in battle, focused and ruthless.

It made his forearms itch with an almost uncontrollable urge to release his claws. It also made him rock hard. Fight or fuck. He wondered what would happen if they ever didn't choose fight.

"If we do this, I have rules." That fierce energy reached in, grabbed the Wolverine where he lay coiled, ready... _waiting_ , and shook him violently, announcing she was a creature worthy of respect and letting him know that she would not tolerate the treatment he doled out so casually to other females.

Logan grunted. He had no words for this fierce being. There was only a low growl locked behind his clenched teeth.

She pulled the hand from her hip and ticked the rules off on her gloved fingers. "One. The girls know I'm there — and consent — or I walk. Two. They don't talk to me. Three. No redheads."

His mouth might have hung open there for a second at the end. Logan couldn't have been more surprised if she'd pulled back her fist and cold-cocked him right there on that smooth green rise above the back quad.

Christ, she was _glorious_. The sun lit that streak of maple in her hair, so bright it almost hurt to look at her. Legs planted. Chest heaving. Hellfire in her eyes and more confident than he'd ever seen her.

The Wolverine snarled his acceptance of her rules. He was well past speaking in pitiful human words. The wild creature before him would hear and understand.

The Rogue smiled and nodded.

The Wolverine flashed his teeth too, but it was not a smile. Tonight, men would bleed.

And after?

Hell, after was anyone's guess…

* * *

Up next: **Cinders**. And so it begins...


	9. Cinders

"So, how do you choose?"

"Huh?"

The Wolverine was drinking with the Rogue between fights. Her attitude hadn't changed much. She was still surly and prickly as all hell, and he was enjoying it. She wasn't nearly so careful when she was all wound up. Later, he'd have sex with someone else while she watched, but this — _this_ — was the foreplay.

It was as good a place as any for it. This bar was a real fighter's bar. Good fighters came here to get better. Great fighters came here to prove themselves. Scouts came occasionally, looking for real talent. There was decent money in MMA these days and the UFC knew damn well that places like this bred a different sort of fighter than could be found in a traditional gym. It didn't have a legitimate octagon, just a metal cage, but it had a few rooms in the back that were also dedicated to the cause — used for anything from sewing up a busted face to making deals. Tonight the Wolverine was hoping to add to the strange action those back rooms had seen. It was why he'd chosen this particular venue.

"Them." Marie waved her hand in the general direction of the cage bunnies, her distaste and her annoyance at his drifting thoughts clear in her dismissive gesture. "How do you choose? Before? After? Is there some kinda specific criteria involved? Or is it like when you go to a buffet and there's a hundred pieces of pie and you pick one at random because, what the hell, you just like pie?"

Logan huffed in amusement and favored Marie with a knowing smirk that she ignored. "What the fuck you got against pie?" He did enjoy winding her up, but he knew he'd probably answer her question, at least in part. It only seemed fair, considering one of the women here tonight would complete their strange erotic tableau before the night was over. Marie had a right to know. Logan grunted. "Ya know, somewhere in there's a real good joke about jailbait and cherry pie."

"You're disturbed, you know that, right?"

The fire in her eyes was leaning towards mischief now rather than hostility. He could see he'd cracked through her facade. At least a little.

"Yep," he said almost pleasantly; a small tug of amusement pulling at his lips. "You don't gotta worry about tonight. I stay the hell away from the jailbait, baby."

Her face grew pensive. " _Now_."

"Mmph." He jerked in the seat as if she'd sucker-punched him. The memory of closing her fingers around his tags was bright and sharp and hot. It burned. His face. His _chest_. Jesus Christ, he wanted to go hit something. Hard. "Kid, you come at me guns blazin', you best be prepared for incomin' fire."

And damn her if she didn't smirk and raise an eyebrow at him, her meaning clear. _Bring it on._

It pissed the man off, but the Wolverine knew an invitation to engage when he saw one. He knew her vulnerable spots, too, and unlike the man, he wasn't afraid to go right for the jugular.

"Ain't before or after."

"What?"

"The women. I don't pick before or after. I pick when I'm in the cage." He could see that Marie was uncomfortable — and intrigued — and he pressed, because he knew anything that had to do with sex and intimacy was the biggest chink in her armor. He went right for it. "Between rounds, I look over the crowd."

"Lookin' for what, exactly?"

"The ones who don't look like they're really gettin' off on the violence and the blood."

"Isn't that a little hypocritical?"

"How's that?"

"It gets _you_ off."

"No it don't."

"I call bullshit."

"Call it whatever the fuck you want. I get off on lettin' _him_ out." He looked her straight in the eyes. " _That's_ what feels good." He really didn't give a fuck what the Wolverine did, as long as the person he was doing it to consented.

He could tell he'd shocked her a little.

"So you don't like the women who openly get off on violence? That turns you off? Because that doesn't make a dadgum bit of sense, sugar. That's what they come here to see. Why else would they even be here?"

"That ain't it." Logan chuffed in amusement. "I pass on the ones who are half way to comin' just from watchin' the fight, 'cause who the hell likes an easy chase?" He ignored Marie's small, stunned gasp. "The ones who pretend not to like it are more fun. All that repression, huh?" His eyes gleamed. "Usually makes for a better ride." It was less fun when they were too jaded to care. Too easy a victory was unsatisfying both in and out of the cage. He also skipped the ones who were pregnant or fertile and peaking, but that felt like one revelation too far.

"God," Marie gasped, a little shakily.

He went in for the kill.

"After that, it's biology drivin' it as much as anythin'. I go for the same thing men have been hardwired to want since forever. Young. Mid-twenties, usually. Curvy. Healthy. Long shiny hair. Good ass. Big soft lips don't hurt none either. Feels real good on my—"

"Logan!"

"You asked," he pointed out, nonchalantly. "No perfume's a bonus," he continued, as if she wasn't sitting there wide-eyed in shock. "But mostly I just don't wanna smell another man on 'em. I don't give a shit what they do after I'm done, but I liketa be _first_."

"You— you. That's…" She was so mad she was sputtering.

"Yep."

There was fire in her eyes now, as he'd intended. "I notice you didn't say anything about their level of intelligence."

He'd purposefully left that off the list because he knew it would push all her buttons. Of course he enjoyed women with a sharp mind. "Talkin' ain't what I'm after." His tone implied that he was pretty much just after a warm body to spend himself in, which wasn't the entire truth, but close enough for the purpose of this conversation.

"I didn't know you were that much of a caveman. God!" Her disdain was clear.

"Yeah ya did," he fired back. What bothered her was that she knew it and she still found it attractive, despite her significant feminist leanings. "Christ, Marie. It ain't as if they're lookin' at me goin': _Oooh. I bet he does the crossword in pen. I'd totally do him!_ They want the man who can put down all the rest. Simple as that."

"That's — that's fucked up."

"That's biology," he corrected.

"Oh, please! We're not slaves to those primal urges. We have the ability to reason! We have free choice. It's not automatic! Not every woman spreads her legs for the man who can give and take the hardest punches."

"Not all of 'em, no. But enough to have a damn fine selection to choose from, most nights." Logan shrugged, turning a blind eye to her obvious outrage and finished off his drink. "Kid, what we have are brains shaped by nature in a system where Mother Nature stacked the goddamn deck. Whose DNA do you think gets passed on more often? It sure as fuck ain't the losers they drag outta the cage." He didn't specifically comment on the women, but she heard it well enough if the look on her face was any indication.

"What about mutation?" she hissed, furious that he'd won their biological debate so soundly, and with so little effort. It spoke to another of the reasons women flocked to him like they did. It wasn't all alpha male charisma and his physical gifts. He was no slouch in the brain department, either. While he wasn't a genius, he was sharp and intuitive. His unique gifts, though they were largely physical and animal in nature, helped him read not just his environment, but people, too.

"Every system needs a wild card." The Wolverine grinned at her from across the table.

"So now we're gonna debate chaos theory?" There was a sultry edge to her words. Like it or not, the reckless part of her was responding to the wildness rising in him.

He pushed himself to his feet and smirked down at her. "Nope. Now I'm gonna go kick some ass n'earn what comes after."

Marie shuddered at that, quite unable to control the automatic response to his crude words. She was uneasy and uncertain, but then suddenly found her voice. It was soft but utterly defiant. "You picked her yet?"

That surprised him.

But challenging him now when his blood was running so hot was madness. Clearly her intent was to provoke him.

It worked.

"Maybe. You wanna know who it is if I have?" While he had a vast amount of sexual experience, this game was new to him. Virgin ground for them both. He wondered if Marie really wanted to know, and why. Maybe to size up the woman. Or to watch the woman watch him. More disturbing was the idea of Marie watching him approach the woman after the fighting was over. He wasn't sure he cared much for the idea of a critical audience analyzing that part of it. It was different when they'd all given themselves over to eroticism.

He also wasn't too sure about how to get from the part where the woman consented to the part where Marie watched him have an orgasm. God, he wanted to touch himself right now just thinking about it.

"NO! I just want to know if you had."

She squirmed under his pointed stare and he cut her zero slack.

"Why? You got any requests?" Marie's full lips rounded into a soft 'oh' of shock. "Blonde? Brunette?" Her eyes flashed dangerously. "More than a handful up top? Less?" This shit was fun. He pressed harder. "Vanilla or one of the more exotic flavors?" His gaze slid over an ethereally petite Asian woman and then back to the Rogue, who appeared to be caught between running and coming straight at him, fur flying.

She hesitated so long that Logan thought he'd pushed too far and then she sort of exploded all at once, slamming her beer down on the table in a burst of feminine anger. "Stop deflecting! Stop answering my questions with more dadgum questions! Have. You. Picked. Yes or no?"

"Yes." It was an answer designed to wind her up more than comply with her demand. That order had grated. However, his response was also the truth.

"They why ask if I had any requests? Would you have changed your mind if I did?"

Logan was suddenly aware that they'd reached a tipping point. The space felt devoid of air; that strange energy crackling wildly between them, and he knew his response would define all that followed. Probably more than either of them realized.

"Yeah." He loomed closer, his mouth close enough to her ear that he could feel a strand of her hair catch on his lips. "What happens after is for us both. It hasta be what you need too, darlin'. So, yeah. I would've."

He could tell he'd shocked her again, but her eyes had softened. Warmed. She said nothing, mute with surprise at his sudden capitulation. He pulled back a little, to see her face better as much as give her some space. He was too close for both their comfort.

"You need somethin', you tell me and I'll see what I can do, huh?"

"You promise?"

"No. No promises, kid. But I'll try." He couldn't _make_ the animal do anything. Hell, he wasn't even sure he could give her what she'd already asked to see tonight. That plate was pretty damn full already.

She'd wanted tenderness.

He was feeling anything but tender.

The animal wanted to rip and tear and smash. To put down all challengers and fuck himself into a pleasure-soaked coma afterwards. Marie hadn't really been wrong there.

But as much as the animal wanted the violence, he also wanted Marie there watching. It was as close to sex as they'd probably ever get. Even more importantly, he wanted her secrets. And the price of them — slow, soft sex with a stranger — was one he was willing to try to pay.

"I'll try," he said again in a hushed voice that sounded terribly final, even to his own ears.

"Me, too." Fire in her eyes now, wilder than he'd ever seen. Christ, it made him _burn_.

"You ready to do this, kid?"

"No, but when has that ever stopped me?"

"Fair enough." The Wolverine looked toward the cage. They were dragging a man out. They'd be calling him soon. His eyes skimmed the crowd, stopping on one particular woman, just for moment, and then he turned back to Marie.

"Sugar?"

"Drink more." It was an order not a suggestion. "It'll be easier if you're lit. Watch for me after. I'll let you know when it's time." She needed complete confidence in him if this was going to work. If she knew she had him spinning, she'd run for the hills. "Bring your drink with you when you come."

"I don't need to be shitfaced to do this, you know."

"I know. You fidget, though. You'll be more comfortable with somethin' in your hand. Least until we're all past the point of no return."

And that was an intimate detail that had nothing to do with sex and everything to do with him knowing her well enough to anticipate how to make this experience easier for her.

She looked more nervous than excited.

"It'll be okay."

Her unease suddenly disappeared in a fierce grin. "Screw that. I expect a hell of a lot more than 'okay'." She all but purred the words at him and he could see the pendulum had swung back the other way. She was primed. More eager than afraid, now.

Ready.

 _Hungry._

"Soon," he snarled, heading to the cage. He needed to burn out some of the animal's wildness or he'd never be able to keep it in afterwards.

The blows fell like hot rain. He took far more than he gave, wanting to tax himself, wanting to expend all that he could _now_. It was futile. Each blow that fell, each concussive shot that rocked his body and made the pain burn bright and hot and loud was eclipsed by one word ringing in his mind every time flesh met flesh with brutal force.

 _Tender._

It echoed under his skin and in his head and crawled through him with thorny spikes that dug deep.

 _Tender._

There was blood and pain and the cataclysmic burst of fury when he rose up, swinging with an inhuman roar.

 _Tender._

No finesse now, just pure brute force. Smashing and pounding until the final bell screamed even louder than the crowd. _This_ he could do. Here he was strong enough to win. He didn't think he'd be able to do that after. Even with the euphoria of victory burning in his blood as the last bell faded and he was named the winner. Not even then did he imagine he'd be able to do what Marie wanted.

But he'd try.

And when he failed, it would all come burning down around him.

* * *

Up next: **Ignite**. In which the Wolverine turns up the heat...


	10. Ignite

**Author's note** : Sorry for the delay in posting. Confession: I fell asleep on my couch the last two nights in a row. My Christmas knitting/Criminal Minds marathon is clearly taking a toll. I'll try to step up my game, y'all. Onward!

* * *

Logan barely remembered talking to the woman he'd picked out. However, the expression on Marie's face when the sweet little blonde heard what he really wanted and turned to look her over was seared into his memory.

He felt _branded_.

Shot after shot, downed, and then a bottle in his fist when it became clear a single mouthful at a time wasn't going to be anywhere near enough. He took his own advice, drinking to take the edge off and keeping the bottle in his hand as he made his move — and his pitch — and finally his signal to Marie.

She was watching from across the room, absently twirling a longneck in her fingers like she was watching a goddamn movie on a rainy Tuesday afternoon. The tapping of her foot gave her away, though. She was jumpy as all hell and that suddenly made him feel better. He wanted her off balance and engaged, not cold and detached.

The little blonde was into him; not all over him lewdly, but touching him in a way that certainly broadcasted her claim on the Wolverine, however brief it might be. She was the one he'd chosen tonight and there was a certain power in that. A shifting of her place in the pack dynamics.

He'd always had a bit of thing for girls who could pull off a summer dress and cowboy boots. Under the leather jacket she wore, a dress the color of dandelions topped a pair of scuffed western boots. Logan had thought 'co-ed gone slumming' and was surprised when she turned out to be more the 'hippy wanderer' type. He should have known. Only a truly free spirit would wear a dress like _that_ into a place like this.

 _Honey_ , he'd rasped into her ear in warning when her fingertips skated over the sweat at the small of his back. _No, Jenny_ , she'd replied, teasingly.

They were always honey, but in this case, it fit damn well. She was golden all over; hair, skin and eyes that lent her a strange sense of monochromatic warmth. Indian summer. Amber ale. Aspen leaves. _Honey_. He could hear her flirtatious words and her excited breathing, and even the sound of her heart. He felt the warm tickle of her breath and the touch of her hand and the brush of her body; skin smooth and warm and soft. She was the kind of girl whose tan came from a love of nature, not a bottle.

Her natural scent surrounded him, a beachy sort of smell that leaned less to the tropical and more to the fresh salty tang of a fall storm on the Atlantic. It was underscored by cannabis and the warm caramel scent of the butterscotch shots she'd been throwing back at the bar. He should have been completely lost in that golden, sensory experience and yet his entire focus was on Marie, slowly rising from her seat at his nod.

Ah, C _hrist._

Even when he forced his focus back to the blonde curled suggestively into his side, he could feel Marie moving towards him through the crowd. There was energy there, and power, like a cold front moving before a storm. Only it wasn't cold, but hot. Scorching. He had goosebumps. And a hard-on. And a fucking tenuous grip on the chain keeping his wilder half from announcing himself with a sharp bloody bite and a feral roar.

He didn't remember much of the walk through the bar to the back rooms, either. Only a strange sort of hyper-awareness of the Rogue following them at a distance. Like magnets. One moved, dragging the other, neither of them strong enough to escape the pull even if they'd wanted to.

Logan did recall a deep, wet kiss to distract the blonde while he let one claw out just enough to cut through the lock barring his entry. He hoped what was on the other side would be a suitable place for what he had in mind. Blood burned in his veins, pounding with a primal call he could not ignore. He wasn't going to be able to hold out much longer.

When he flipped on the light, the room wasn't what he'd been expecting, given the sturdy deadbolt on the heavy door. He'd hoped for a private office or perhaps a store room housing the expensive medical supplies he knew they kept on hand for when things went south fast. He'd seen fighters return to the bar with an eyebrow stitched back up or a torn ear sewn back together. He'd not expected to find this small personal space; a strange little oasis in a sea of impersonality.

A cheap table with mismatched chairs sat on one wall, sporting a shitty Mr. Coffee and a small, neatly stacked assortment of non-perishable food. A tall, beat-up dresser with a microwave on top sat beside it. Across from that, perhaps two short, shuffling steps away, an old military cot ran the entire length of the opposite wall. A duffel bag was tucked away under it, along with a pair of boots and a motorcycle helmet. Fast food wrappers in the trash. A set of rickety shelves held a coffee cup, some paper plates, an old Kindle, and an even older iPod. Someone _lived_ here in this converted storeroom. But at that moment, all he cared about was that it had four walls and a door. Minus one lock, but he could take care of that.

Logan pulled the blonde inside and back against his bare, blood-spattered chest, making room for Marie to follow. She slipped inside soundlessly closing the door and moving away as he leaned in, grabbed the closest chair from the table, and wedged it under the doorknob.

"Sit," he growled out to Marie in a voice that sounded rougher than he'd intended, and still far steadier than he actually felt.

She sat.

He couldn't even look at her. Not yet. Everything just felt too raw, like a nerve exposed. Depositing the bottle on the table, he pushed the blonde against the dresser instead, kissing her more to hide his face in her neck than to taste her skin. Musk. Butterscotch. Salt. The faint, briny tang of the ocean, too. She'd been to the beach. Her hair was a wild tangle, carrying the scent of the sea and catching in his fingers.

Her mouth was wide and generous and murmured encouragement as he pushed her jacket to the floor and slid his lips down her neck. Unable to stop himself, he bit here there, hard. She twisted her fingers in his hair and moaned loudly as he rubbed up against her firmly, rocking the microwave against the wall with enough force to jostle the turntable inside.

Turbulent. That's how it felt. A full-on charge over the cliff and then that long blissful drop down, down, down...

It was not at all slow. Or sweet. Or _tender_.

Fuck.

Logan lifted his head, feeling a hot rush of lust as he took in the bite he'd just made. Taking a deep, steadying breath, he turned his face to look at Marie.

She was leaning back in the chair, head resting back against the door in casual repose. The death grip she had on the bottle in her hand was the only outward sign that she was struggling, too. In that moment, he couldn't read Marie, even with the powerful senses at his command. His mind was far from clear and her scent was obscured by the salty-caramel musk filling his mouth and nose.

Marie didn't look engaged, though. She looked like what she was, an uncomfortable observer, and Logan realized he probably didn't have long to change that before Marie finished her beer and bolted. The blonde shifted against him restlessly, telegraphing both her need and her urgency. Logan was suddenly aware that if he wanted Marie to feel engaged, he had to include her. He couldn't just lose himself in the soft body dry humping against his and hope that would be enough for any of them.

Tender.

 _Christ._

Closing his eyes, Logan struggled to center himself enough for the hazy idea to crystallize into something he could act on. His cock throbbed, and the world swam, and the weight of Marie's eyes on him threatened to send him crashing to his knees. He'd barely started and she'd already wrecked his control.

His eyes opened. He looked at Marie, but his words were for the blonde. "Turn around."

Jenny's interpretation of his order was obvious; she assumed he was preparing to penetrate her and she was all for that plan, with one caveat. "I have a condom if you don't, big guy. I don't do bareback, even for you."

"Mmph." Logan dug a condom from his jeans, throwing it on the dresser with a nod and a grunt and a dirty leer for both women. "Turn around, honey." He liked it best this way, but the ugly truth was it would be easier if they didn't have to look her in the eyes.

Marie wet her lips. The blonde turned, greedy for his touch, pupils blown wide with carnal expectation as she presented him with her shapely backside. The Wolverine held Marie's gaze and rubbed a large palm down the length of his erection, trapped uncomfortably in jeans dark enough to hide the splatters of blood. His wide thumb lingered on the head, rubbing back and forth until he couldn't hold back the deep grunt of pleasure.

Marie was leaning forward now, eyes wide and dark.

 _Gotcha._

The blonde pushed her ass back against him, moaning and touching herself. Her hand skated over neck and breasts before pulling up her skirt. She nudged her panties to the side lewdly and slid her fingers between her legs. Logan wasn't sure if she was doing it to entice him or because she just couldn't wait.

Marie's eyes didn't leave him. She wasn't too interested in the woman, or the openly erotic display, only his reaction to it. That realization made his hands shake and he saw Marie smile when he clenched them into fists.

Fuck.

There was no escaping that truth, either.

He'd caught Marie's interest, but she'd caught him up, too.

Logan touched the woman in front of him and kept his eyes on the woman by the door. Both were panting now, flushed and squirming. He wondered if he could make one woman come by touching the other, but he was much too close to the edge for that kind of game just now. Like before, Marie's presence pushed him to the edge faster than he imagined possible.

Instead of ramming into the blonde and pounding her against the dresser until they both came, he drew out the touching — sometimes impatiently — but with an eye to gauging Marie's response. Nothing when he palmed the blonde's small perky breasts, pulling and pinching until she moaned and shoved her ass back at him again, grinding until he groaned and caught her hips in his firm grip before he came in his fucking pants.

It was then that Marie made her first soft gasp. It took Logan a moment to realize it was in response to his loss of control and the rough sound of pleasure that had just been forced from him. He did it again, half expecting he wouldn't be able to reproduce the results. Thinking, surely he couldn't have been right about the connection between his groan and Marie's answering gasp, he pinned the blonde in place and rubbed right where he needed.

Colors exploded behind his eyes and he grunted thickly, bucking his hips helplessly as he fought not to come. Fuck. _Fuck._ This time, Marie tried to stifle the needy little sound, but it echoed in Logan's ears like a thunderbolt. Dragging in a ragged breath, he struggled for control. For distance.

"Please, please…." The blonde was begging for it now.

"No," he growled. "Not yet."

Disregarding the blonde's whimper of distress, Logan forced his hips away and made his hands move slowly. The touch was too firm for it to truly be tender, but he tried.

Jenny liked having her breasts touched and fondled, but it produced no reaction in Marie, so he moved on. Awareness tickled in the back of his mind that he was more focused on Marie than on the woman he was about to fuck. He felt guilty, but not enough to stop, and they were all enjoying it to some degree. Jenny accepted his touch along her hips, sighing a little in frustration as he trailed his fingertips and then his mouth up her spine. Marie panted.

He did it again to be sure. Neck. Spine. Small of the back. These places produced an observable reaction in Marie, but none so strong as the loss of his control.

Marie liked to hear him.

An experimental bit of dirty talk in the blonde's ear got to Marie too, but not like the rougher non-verbal sounds of his pleasure. Those grunts and growls he could not contain — those made Marie shake. Made her hands unsteady on the bottle and made the sweet musk of her arousal bloom enough that he could smell it, even over the syrupy sweet butterscotch blonde in his arms.

It was wrong and he knew it, but Logan focused on those soft touches that got Marie off the best. The slow drag of his knuckles against the delicate bones of a spine. His mouth, marking the slender nape of a neck. His crude grunts when he couldn't stand the frustratingly slow pace and he opened his belt and pants to stroke his cock firmly.

Marie whimpered, watching his fist pump.

To placate Jenny, he slipped his other hand between her legs, touching and pressing and stroking in maddening little circles that were never quite enough. He knew it felt good, but he could also feel her frustration building. Everything about her screamed out to him that what she'd wanted from him was a good, hard roll in the hay. A hot, impersonal, nasty little backroom fuck that blew his load and her mind and could be easily dismissed by them both, afterwards.

This goddamn tenderness was too intimate. To slow. A bait and switch. Jenny wanted hard and fast and rough, and was none too happy with slow and sweet. Logan tried not to focus on that and instead watched Marie watch his hand slide up and down his cock. It was slick and wet now, and every time he rubbed his thumb over the tip, both he and Marie shuddered. Jenny came mewling, her body clenching on the fingers of his other hand while she twisted and shook and cried out for him to fuck her.

The Wolverine licked the slick precome from the hand he'd been stroking himself with, holding Marie's wild eyes as he did so, wanting her to see the proof of his virility before rolling the condom on.

 _Like a first time_ , she'd said.

Logan couldn't imagine any first time being like this; half crazed with lust and up against a dresser, but he doubted the rickety old cot would bear his weight or the force of his thrusts. It didn't really matter anyway. He couldn't much think beyond the throbbing between his legs and that one word held tightly in a white-knuckled grip.

 _Tender._

 _TenderTenderTender._ It seemed to echo in his head with every wild throb of his blood.

He tried. He really did. That first push into that liquid golden heat was impossibly slow. Sweat stung his eyes, making them water. Marie moaned, biting her lip to try to muffle the sound. Jenny cursed him. Logan groaned loudly, uncomfortable with the honesty revealed there, but unwilling to forgo anything that would heighten the experience for Marie. He was engorged to the point of pain and the body he was invading was small and tight. Not virgin, just petite, inside and out. There was no way she'd be able to take all of him.

"Fuck me!" Jenny's voice was ragged now. Husky from panting. She'd been prepared for a sprint, not a marathon. Her legs were already quivering. It wasn't what she'd imagined — or even wanted. It felt too good to stop, but she was still angry. She wanted him to take her and possess her and hurt her and fuck her like a rag doll. When he didn't do any of those things to her satisfaction, she vented her displeasure verbally, a string of filth pouring from her full lips that finally ended with a plaintive wail and a: _"Fuck me, you bastard!"_

Logan withdrew, taking his time, shifting his hips so Marie could see the fat, wet length of his cock emerge. He teased the small pink opening with it before he pushed back inside, clenching his teeth and panting through the urge to come. He needed to thrust and thrust until the mindless shuddering spurts blocked out the world.

Closing his eyes tightly, Logan tried to give Marie what she'd asked for. Tried to imagine what it might be like to push his thick cock into a virgin. _SlowSlowSlow_ , he chanted in his head, trying to chain the beast. His control was unraveling.

It didn't work. Opening his eyes, Logan caught Marie's gaze in a desperate attempt to fix himself in the here-and-now. He tried to imagine what it would have been like to push into her untried body, to see her virgin's blood on his cock and to feel her shake and clench around him as they both shattered.

That didn't work, either. The image, fueled by Marie's scent and the sight of her face, flushed and aroused, produced quite a different reaction than he'd expected. He shoved forward almost violently; a primal reaction he couldn't control. One brutal thrust. All in.

Jenny screamed.

"Yes! Harder! Fuck me like you mean it!"

Failed. He'd failed.

He didn't fuck her harder. He forced himself into a slower rhythm that wound them all to the breaking point. The bottle fell from Marie's fingers. Jenny sobbed. The Wolverine howled so loudly in Logan's head that the world swam before his eyes. Jenny came, and then came again, but not like she needed to. Marie's gloved fingers were pressed to her mouth. Logan's lips were pulled back over his teeth.

This was wrong, all wrong, but he couldn't stop.

He knew how to end it, though.

Wrapping the blonde's thick hair around his fist, he pulled hard, twisting her nipple sharply with his other hand and slamming into her like they both needed to finally get off good. Jenny convulsed, spasming under him, and would have fallen if he hadn't pinned her against the dresser as he came.

He didn't look away from Marie's face, roaring out his orgasm with a growl that shook them, Marie most of all. The hand she had pressed to her lips was trembling. For a handful of moments, he couldn't think. There was only gouts of pleasure so intense his legs shook while the world faded in and out to the cadence of the wet, rhythmic spurts.

When the world returned, Logan swore.

The chair by the door was empty and overturned.

Marie was gone.

"You're an asshole," Jenny pronounced, taking a steadying shot from the bottle he'd abandoned earlier. She stood on shaking legs by the little table, watching him with a critical eye while he stripped off the spent condom. He did not miss the heat flaring in her eyes at the sight of his thick cock, glistening and half hard.

"Yeah."

"I feel like we could do it the right way now that she's gone, but I'm too sore."

"No you ain't," he snarled, remembering how she'd wanted him to hurt her. How she'd moaned when he'd pinched her nipple hard. He was in the mood now.

"You got another condom, big guy?"

"Yeah."

He made no move to reach for it. Instead, he fisted a hand in her hair and pushed her to her knees, hating that it excited them both.

She wanted mean. She wanted nasty. He was more than willing. Screw tender. Screw gentle. He just wanted to _fuck_.

Lies.

He just wanted to be numb.

And to forget.

* * *

Up next: **Torch**. The price has been paid. The Rogue owes the Wolverine her intimate secrets in return. He wants answers. It's her turn to pay up... And her turn to be vulnerable.


	11. Torch

Author's note: Sorry for the late posting again. My interwebs have been down. There was some kind of accident that involved a major fiber line being severed nearby and it's caused all sorts of problems. Local business were losing their minds that they had no way of running credit cards a week before Christmas. lol My thoughts: Screw putting a venti latte on your Visa. I have fic to post! :)

* * *

Logan finally let Marie find him on the dock, two nights later. She was not silent in her approach through the trees. He could have melted away into the darkness if he'd chosen to do so, but he wanted the secrets she owed him more than he wanted to avoid a difficult conversation by seeking the solitary solace of the woods.

She took her sweet time and he didn't blame her. No moon tonight. It was pitch black, the bright celestial bodies above shrouded by thick clouds. It was late. The low chorus of frogs and crickets had faded. He had a bottle of cheap bourbon between his knees and a cigar in his teeth, neither of which did a damn thing to take the edge off, but they were old, familiar vices. There was a little comfort in that, at least.

The warm night wind brought Marie's scent to him clearly. She smelled of smoke and booze and he wondered if she'd been out at a bar tonight or if she'd just needed a shot or two and a cigarette to steady her nerves before coming to talk to him. She'd never needed to do that before. Then again, she'd never watched him fuck a woman at his invitation before, either.

"Hey," she greeted softly, sitting beside him on the dock.

"Hey," he returned, sliding the bottle over her way until it bumped her leg. Marie shook her head and he reclaimed the bottle, taking a long pull before settling it back between his thighs. "Suit yourself."

The darkness fit his mood. He could see her quite clearly with his enhanced senses, but he knew he'd be little more than a shadow to her, even at this distance. Knowing he could read her while remaining virtually invisible to her felt good. He was struggling with how much of his private self he'd revealed to her the other night, and he welcomed the chance to keep his cards close to the chest tonight. Now it was her turn to pay up. Her turn to be vulnerable.

She _owed_ him.

"You okay, kid?"

He heard her snort softly. "Sure. Why wouldn't I be?"

The tip of his cigar glowed red as he inhaled. It wasn't in him to tiptoe around anything. "Maybe 'cause you ran like a scalded dog the other night? Ain't seen ya in two days."

"Pffff." She shrugged. "I've been around."

Fair point. He'd been the one making himself scarce. He still wasn't ready for this conversation. He wanted answers, but he wasn't sure if he'd be able to keep from pushing for more than she was ready to give. He wanted things to change, but he knew it needed to come from her. She had to be the one to initiate a more intimate sexual connection and her reluctance to do so — or to even bring it up directly was a huge red flag.

That she couldn't even discuss exploring those boundaries made him acutely uncomfortable. He knew addressing it directly would send her running. He could just imagine how well that would go over. _Hey, kid. You wanna ditch the third wheel next time and just see what happens?_ He knew exactly what she'd do. Hit him. Hard. And if she ever talked to him again, things would never be the same. It wouldn't work unless _she_ was ready. He clenched his teeth.

"Mmph."

"You're right," she said, suddenly. "I bailed at the end." She sounded almost… wistful. He was glad she hadn't stayed. Not only were those moments directly after orgasm the most difficult for him to let her see, he hadn't wanted her there for round two.

"Yeah." He mentally berated himself for not being able to be what she needed.

"It— it got a little intense there at the end."

"Sorry." Another long pull from the bottle. Another puff from the cigar before he could get the words out. "I tried."

"Tried?"

"Tender." He all but spat the word. "I tried. Even for you, I couldn't—" He stopped then, thankful for the blackness shrouding him, hiding the heat in his face. And the regret.

"It was fine," she talked over him.

"Right." Even he knew that when a woman said _fine_ , she most definitely meant something else. Like when a man said _right_.

Something in his tone amused her and she huffed a little in a warm sort of way. "What do you want me to say, sugar? You lookin' for me to hold up a scorecard with marks out of ten?"

That drew a chuckle out of him. While it had definitely been an intimate and revealing experience, it hadn't even been close to what she had asked for. "Nah." He wasn't sure how to articulate what he wanted from her. He wasn't sure he knew himself. He struggled for a while and finally gave up. "Sorry it wasn't what you wanted."

She flinched beside him. "What makes you think that? That's not really your call to make, you know?"

"You left," he said pointedly.

"So?"

"So, if it was whatcha wanted, you woulda—"

"I would have what? Shouted encouragement? Touched myself? Stuck around for the 'pillow talk'? Shared an afterglow beer with y'all at the bar?" She rolled her eyes. "High-fiving each other and doing shots while we ran a post-game analysis?"

Logan's lips thinned into a line at her acerbic response, his mood souring even further. He'd dropped his guard and let her see far more than he was comfortable revealing and she was still defensive. And still not keeping her end of the deal. There was no way he was going to let that go. He'd known from the beginning that he was going to have issues with pushing too hard. "So what _did_ you do after?"

"Went home and took out my knitting," she snapped. "Come on, Logan. What do you think I did?"

"Mmph," he grunted, because fuck her. They had a deal. It didn't quite seem fair that she'd watched him have an orgasm and was still refusing to even _talk_ to him about herself. That just wasn't right.

He could tell she knew it, too and so he tamped down hard on his growing ire. Instead of pressing for more, he waited impatiently for her to fill the silence. He knew she would, eventually. She was too proud not to pay her debts. He was less interested in what she'd done than in what she thought and felt about what she'd seen — and what that might mean for the future, but he knew she needed to go at her own pace.

The night flowed around them.

"Tender," she finally said.

"Huh?"

"I shouldn't have asked for that. Sorry."

"S'fine," he returned, grimacing. When men said fine, they clearly meant something else, too. "Nothin' like your first time, huh?"

Her silvery laughter was more introspective than self-deprecating. "Definitely not even in the ballpark." Logan wondered if she'd been trying to relive something or rewrite it. Both of those things were easier than the idea that she might have been trying to imagine how it might have been between the two of them.

"Wilder?" he ventured, feeling pretty shitty about not being able to give her what she'd asked for.

She shook her head. "Longer," she teased, her face warm and open. Not a bad memory then, thank Christ, though her tone seem to imply she wished her first time had lasted longer than it did. "I don't think we even made it to the five minute mark."

"Heh. Anyone I know?"

"Yes."

She didn't elaborate. He didn't ask. He wasn't sure he wanted to know. Not really. Picturing her with some fumbling teenage dumbass made him feel uncomfortable, like some dirty old man. Her first time. Jesus. He tried to be objective. He knew it was a normal part of growing up and he'd wanted that milestone for her, but he wasn't really interested in the details. As long as it had been okay for her and there wasn't some asshole out there who needed a beating, he was good.

"Hmph." Because really, what could he say to that? His mind couldn't help wondering though. Had she given it up to the iceprick before he dumped her? Who else could it have been? Pyro? She wouldn't be the first girl to get back at a guy by fucking his best friend. Pete? He hoped not. A wholly selfish thought. He genuinely liked the big, quiet Russian, but the thought of someone built like _that_ tearing into Marie's petite little body made him want to hit something. Hard. The tin man had a heart like a nine pound hammer, and logic dictated the rest of him was built to match.

"Gawd. I can just about hear that hamster wheel spinnin' in your head from here, sugar." He said nothing, but he took a long pull from the bottle between his legs. "Relax, cowboy. I didn't want it to suck so I picked someone older."

Logan thought his head might explode. That didn't leave very many options. Kurt, maybe, before he lit out? They had been pretty tight after Alkali Lake. Chuck? He supposed it was a possibility that with as much of Mags as she had in her head that she might look at the Professor and see something much different than the rest of them did, but he didn't think Charles could unbend enough to ever— Logan suddenly frowned as another thought occurred to him. An equally unpleasant one followed on its heels. Hank? _Scott_? No fucking way. Surely it had to have been someone else. A guest, maybe. They had lots of visitors. His mind came back to Pete. He was a few years older than she was…

"Fuck."

Marie smiled, clearly pleased with herself. "Yeah."

"Now you're just fuckin' with me."

She just shrugged noncommittally.

"Fuck," he muttered again. The tip of his cigar glowed brightly in the darkness, illuminating his face for a brief moment. "If he knew what he was doin', then it shoulda lasted longer than five damn minutes."

"First, who says it was a man?"

Logan grunted in surprise.

"Second, it was pretty intense. I didn't think it would be like that. So much inside and outside." He understood she meant more than just the physical. "I couldn't help it. I came really fast. Seeing that, feeling that — made him come too."

That he could understand all too well.

"So it _was_ a man."

It was the safer ground by far. He couldn't even bring himself to comment on the rest of what she'd revealed. Just having her in the room was enough to blow his mind and trash his control. The thought of feeling her lose it like that made his hands shake and he was glad the darkness hid that response from her.

"Maybe." Maybe, hell. It was a man. He could tell by how she'd described it more than the pronoun she'd used. Even if she hadn't been very graphic, he could easily imagine what had happened. She'd picked someone older, maybe someone who was a friend, and when that man had seen and felt her uninhibited carnal response, the decision about when and how to come had been taken right out of his hands. "Does it matter?"

"No." Instead of that prurient imagine making him hot, it just made him feel sad. How the hell had she gone from someone open enough to so candidly enjoy herself and her partner during sex to someone who was utterly terrified of any physical contact at all? There was certainly more to that story than the glimpse he'd gotten tonight. It made him want to shake her. He was not a patient man.

She was silent a while, eyebrows drawn together, thinking. "Do you remember your first time?"

"Nah." He'd lost that along with everything else.

"I don't mean your _first_ time, first time. I mean after…" She raised her fist in a gesture he read to mean post-Stryker.

"Yeah," He succeeded in keeping the bitterness from his voice, but not without considerable effort. "That wasn't tender either." He tried to lighten the mood.

"Sorry. That wasn't really fair of me." She sighed. "I wasn't thinkin'. You don't go to a steakhouse and order Chinese, you know?"

He looked over her sharply.

"It's not that I don't think you could be that way with someone if— if you wanted." She tripped over her words. "Just that it wasn't the right venue."

Or the right partner. She didn't say it but it was clearly implied.

Logan absorbed that revelation and responded before he could censor himself. "Why that, then? Of everythin' you coulda asked me for, why _that_?"

She held her hand out for the bottle and he passed it over wordlessly, but she just wrapped her fingers around the neck without taking a drink. An anchor, he realized. He was pushing into places she didn't want him to go. Well, too bad. He'd been plenty uncomfortable, too. Now it was her turn.

"Like a first time— it just seemed like a good place to begin, sugar."

It didn't smell like a lie. It was a reasonable answer. It might have even been the truth, but it sure as hell wasn't the _whole_ truth. It was also a clear indication of her desire to repeat the experience. A beginning implied other encounters would follow. A hot spike of carnal anticipation sang in his blood at that realization. It was less than he'd hoped for, but far better than nothing.

"Fair enough." He understood why she'd wanted the bottle. He felt less settled without something in his hands. He wrapped them over the edge of the dock instead, staring out at the water. "Was it whatcha thought it'd be?"

"More," she breathed.

Her thumb circled the lip of the bottle and he didn't miss how her gaze had come to rest on his hands. Her thighs clenched together. She was thinking about what she'd seen. Maybe even thinking about touching him. Her thumb was rubbing the bottle the same way and with the same rhythm that he'd touched himself.

If she'd been any other woman, he would have pulled her close. Put his mouth on her neck and his hands on her ass. She'd have been straddling his lap and panting against his skin; a hot sweaty ride right there on the dock.

But Marie wasn't just any woman. He knew how to piss her off. How to make her laugh. How to make her blush… but he didn't know jackshit about what to do or say with her now. He knew Marie was the one who needed to drive this train, although he wasn't above feeding the engine. He had a naturally dominant personality. Letting someone else lead was unfamiliar and uncomfortable. For as much as it was necessary, it chafed. He couldn't change that, even for her.

Logan took the bottle back, savoring another sip as he tried to order his chaotic thoughts. Marie was a passionate, sensual creature who was desperately afraid of being touched. And yet, she trusted him. Without the pressure of making it all about her, he — mistakenly, _arrogantly_ — thought he could provide a sexual experience that wasn't physical, or at least one that didn't require her to touch and be touched. He'd thought he could give her a sexual outlet where she felt safe.

Fat lot of good that had done.

Instead, he'd fucked it all up and sent her running into the night. He hated failing at anything, and especially hated failing with her.

And now that she was sitting next to him, he could admit to himself that he'd been hoping to use his ability to give her that outlet to forge an intimate relationship with her that didn't actually center on touch; a deepening of the strange bond they shared.

Which meant a few things: One— an acknowledgement that they had a connection he cared about maintaining. Two— that connection, while important, wasn't adequately meeting either of their needs anymore. Three— he wanted things to change enough to include a sexual element beyond innuendo and whatever dirty echoes of him might still be lingering in her head. And four— he was obviously willing to risk fucking things up permanently for a shot at number three.

More to the point, he realized that it was much harder for him to do than he thought it would be, and clearly, she was having an equally difficult time giving up even the smallest pieces of herself in return. But as awkward and painful as it was, it was equally clear they both wanted to try again.

What the hell did that even mean?

Would they even get to a place where they could talk openly?

Were they just gluttons for punishment? Or was it something else?

Logan knew what he was getting out of it, but he wasn't really sure what was driving Marie. Was it just that she felt safe enough with him there to meet some kind of unaddressed sexual need? Or was she interested in watching him specifically? Were those two things even mutually exclusive? He just didn't know.

He liked that she'd wanted to be there. He liked the secrets she'd given up to him tonight, too. For now, that was enough.

Logan took a deep drink, breathing through the burn. It wasn't good bourbon. It didn't go down smoothly and if you swallowed a big enough slug it produced a mule-kick reaction — a slight shudder he couldn't quite suppress.

"Gimme."

He passed the bottle back without comment.

This time, she took a healthy swallow and then she set the bottle between them on the dock. Whatever she'd been about to say was subverted by a wet cough.

"Damn," she sputtered. "That's bad. Old Crow?" she guessed.

He shook his head even though he knew she couldn't see him. She wasn't wrong. It was like drinking sweetened kerosene. It got the job done, though. "Nah. Rebel Yell. S'the battery acid finish that gives it away."

"That name's a travesty, sugar. Besides, if you want a rebel yell that really leaves you feeling like hammered shit in the morning, there's easier ways to get _that_ job done." Her eyes sparkled.

Logan chuckled in spite of his mood. He'd always perversely enjoyed the sharper side of her tongue. She was the most fun when she was prickly as all hell.

"Yeah, well, this kind I'll heal from."

Goddamn her if she didn't smile — _smile_ — at that. Bloodthirsty little thing. She liked getting under his skin. A point of pride with her, obviously.

Christ, she had no idea.

The silence fell again between them. He didn't fill it and didn't expect she would either. For a while he'd thought maybe she'd been bracing herself to say something to him — she'd seemed to be gathering herself, but then she'd chosen levity over whatever it was she'd needed a shot of liquid courage to say.

She shifted, chin raised defiantly.

"It was my car."

"Huh?"

"My car," she repeated, like she was waiting for him to make some intuitive leap. It was one of her more annoying traits. Her mind was unique. She had a collective, plural memory. It gave her an edge and often the upper hand, tactically speaking, but she was not a linear thinker. He wasn't either. He tended to just go with his gut. The difference was that sometimes, especially if she'd been drinking, she expected him to just follow her lateral cognitive jumps and she had a tendency to be annoyed when something that was obvious to her was not immediately obvious to him.

"What about it, darlin'?"

"It's where I went, when I ran the other night."

"I figured." She seemed surprised by his response. "You seemed pretty eager to get goin'. I figured ya just lit outta there like your hair was on fire." Wanting to be as far away from him as she could get. He wasn't going to apologize again, dammit.

"That's not what I did."

It was her tone and not her words that caught his attention.

"Yeah?"

"Yep," Her lips smacked on the 'p'. "Sugar, you think I could watch that and just ride around after like nothing happened? I ran to my car and locked the doors so I could shove my hand down my pants."

His mouth hung open.

"One hand yanking open my zipper and the other in my teeth. I was fixin' to bite off my glove but then I felt the leather on my tongue. Rough," she added needlessly. "That's what I wanted. Needed." Her quick, breathless words conveyed the immediacy of her need with a clarity that made him rock hard in seconds.

"Goddamn," he muttered.

The Rogue didn't look at him as she pushed herself to her feet. "I left the gloves on and just went for it. Thank fuck for tinted windows. It was a new personal record for me. Three times in under five minutes. I soaked the leather and it still left me raw."

He couldn't stop the growl snarling out of his throat.

She seemed to enjoy his visceral reaction to her intimate confession.

He wanted to order her to wear those same gloves next time, but he couldn't make the words rise to the surface. The animal was too close. The images she'd painted were too vivid; that little hand in her pants and the rough rasp of wet leather sliding between her legs. The knowledge that her reaction to what she'd seen was so powerful that it overrode caution and reason just about ended him. She hadn't wanted the smooth slick glide of skin on skin, she'd needed more. Something intense to buck and grind against and—

"Do you remember the torch?"

Her question barely registered. He grunted in response. Even if he'd been capable of speaking at that moment, his memories of that night were a complex tangle of emotions that defied explanation.

"You touched my face." Her expression said she was back in the past, reliving that moment. "For a little bit, before I was all the way back, that's all I felt. It was gentle." Her voice was barely a whisper now. "And your skin felt kinda rough on my face. Strong. Solid and good. It was so tender."

The revelation rocked him back. She carried on, seemingly unaware.

"Sometimes I think that's what made me want to come back from that other place."

She didn't wait for his reaction or a reply. Maybe she felt like he had the other night— that all of a sudden, it was too much too fast. She melted away into the shadows, leaving him reeling.

She'd chosen to leave her gloves on because she'd been imagining him touching her directly.

More shocking still, was the idea that she'd chosen to come back because of him. Not because of his gift, but because something in him called to something in her, something so strong she could feel it even in that other place.

 _Tender._

He understood, now.

It also explained why what happened had scared the shit out of them both.

And why it was infinitely easier for them both to be alone in the dark.

* * *

Up next: **Blister**. The Wolverine wants more answers. He's aware there will be a steep price to pay, but what he doesn't expect is for the Rogue to change the game...


	12. Blister

A week later, Logan and Marie were at a different fight bar, doing shots of tequila between beers. Their conversation grew less stilted as the night wore on, though Logan could see Marie getting antsy when he made no move to join the ongoing fights.

He'd invited her out tonight after a session in the Danger Room. She'd turned up around ten, but it was nearly eleven and they were still at the bar. It probably wasn't nice, but he was enjoying watching her fidget in anticipation. He was tired of waiting. He wanted her off balance. On edge.

"They're callin' for fighters again, sugar."

He grunted. "You lookin' to get my shirt off?"

Marie rolled her eyes. "God! Arrogant, much?"

Logan just shrugged. He knew what his body did to women. "Nah. Not fightin' tonight." He felt the urge, sure, but it wasn't smart to fight too often. It drew too much attention. It was smarter to fly under the radar or to fight further from home.

Her face fell, just for a moment, before she covered it up.

He still smirked, enjoying the flash of irritation in her eyes at his smug expression. "You know, I don't need the fightin' to wanna get off."

It was a shocking concept to her, that they might do this without the excuse of a fight ramping things up first. Following the natural fight-fuck progression seemed to make it easier for them both, but he wasn't in the mood for easy tonight. He wanted more from her. God knew she demanded her pound of flesh from him in a way that made him feel exposed and raw. She'd damn well join him there twisting in the wind or she could shove off.

"I don't either," she snapped, taking a healthy swallow of her beer and looking over the room. "Though I seem to remember you saying you picked while you were in the cage."

He just grunted at that.

"How about _her_?"

Her defiant response caught him off guard. He hadn't imagined she'd suggest someone. She probably wouldn't have if he hadn't made her feel defensive about being here. About wanting to watch him have sex without the euphoria following the fights excusing what came after. He'd said he'd take her requests into consideration, but never imagined she'd have the balls to suggest someone outright. He should have known.

It wasn't even close to what he'd wanted from her tonight, but he couldn't deny there was a part of him that wanted to make her pay for not having the guts to be honest about what she really wanted from him.

Logan looked over at her choice, a startlingly slender beauty with white-blond hair and eyes so pale they were barely blue. He shook his head.

"Too skinny?"

"Too pregnant," he muttered.

"How…?"

Logan tapped his nose.

Marie made a face, clearly surprised by that information. "What about _her_ , then."

He took a sip of his beer and looked over to where a young woman with black hair and striking green eyes had been steadily putting away Jack and Cokes for the last hour. The pixie cut suited her, framing her heart-shaped face and showing off her eyes. She looked like a good girl who'd ransacked her closet trying to look tough. Black leather jacket with some kinda dark blouse under it. Black skinny jeans that showed off her long legs. Fucking hot leopard print pumps. Logan did appreciate a good pair of fuck-me heels.

She had that 'good girl gone slumming' look, but her eyes were sad. More baggage there than he wanted. In his experience, it was easier to pick someone who knew the score, not someone there to blunt the pain of a bad breakup, or to forget a shitty day at the office, or to prove something to her spoiled little girlfriends. Those women tended not to know the unspoken rules. They wanted to stare into his eyes and kiss him on the mouth and feel him hold them after.

Christ.

There was a significant difference between a passionate one night stand and a rough, sweaty fuck with a nameless stranger that was over in minutes.

"Fine," he said with a perverse sense of satisfaction.

 _Be careful what you ask for, darlin'._

As if she'd sensed him calling her bluff, she doubled down. "In the bathroom." His eyebrows damn near shot off his face. "I wanna see you mark her."

That definitely had the feeling of a gauntlet being thrown down.

It still made the blood pool hot and thick between his legs.

Fuck.

"She ain't gonna go for it." Good girl like that? She might be up for something hot and dirty with him, but letting someone else watch? He doubted it.

"Yes, she will."

She said it with such conviction that he wondered if she knew something he didn't.

" _You_ gonna go talk to her then?"

Heh. There went her eyes, wide and incredulous that he'd even suggest such a thing.

"No. _You_ are."

"Kid—" She was pissing him off. He wasn't her fucking lapdog.

"Twenty bucks says she agrees."

He was annoyed with her high-handedness, but he wanted to prove her wrong more.

"Deal."

~ooOoo~

Logan lost the bet.

He might have lost the battle, but he damn sure wasn't going to lose the war.

The bathroom was ridiculously small. It made him smile. There was no way for Marie not to have a front row seat for the action. The stall was cramped. He could feel the girl tense under his fingers as they all piled in. She was nervous, eyes wild like a hungry spring doe about to bolt.

"Get the lock, darlin'." It was an order. He wanted to be sure Marie wouldn't run, too. Or at least make it harder if she did. Maybe give himself a little time to try to change her mind. Marie complied and then immediately backed herself up against the door.

Logan pressed the girl against the side of the stall. She was trembling. "Shhh… S'all right. I gotcha." He kissed her; a slow, deep, wet kiss that rocked all of them. He didn't usually do that, but he knew right from the beginning that this wasn't going to be anything like the usual for any of them.

They were all walking on the edge.

She clung to him as he kissed her, growing more pliant as his hands roamed her back and hips. When he palmed her breast, she moaned into his mouth and rolled her pelvis against him, rubbing against his erection.

Shifting so it would hit her just right, he put his arm behind her and pulled her into the hard grind. Her leg came up, opening her hips to him and winding around his thigh. She wanted it, but she was still holding back. Still on the edge of running, tense and shivery.

Marie gasped quietly.

The soft, needy sound seemed to polarize the woman in his arms.

She pushed at his broad chest.

"I don't know if I can do this, babe. Sorry."

Logan fought the urge to throw a triumphant look over at Marie. Instead, he met the girl's watery green eyes. She was obviously struggling, on the edge of tears, wanting something wild— but afraid, too. He hoped that wasn't a lesson lost on Marie.

"Honey, you came here lookin' for somethin' from a man like me." The girl nodded, bottom lip caught in her teeth. "Lemme give it to ya." He stroked her hair. "You'll like it." He rubbed up against her again, smiling a little as her breath caught and her hands clenched in his shirt. "C'mon. You'll be safe with me."

Under the sooty sweep of her lashes, he saw the girl's eyes flick to Marie. The girl blushed and he watched the sweep of color creep over her pale cheeks. In his experience, there were two kinds of women; those who got off on being watched — who liked that feeling of power it gave them over someone else — and those who couldn't really let themselves go enough to cross whatever internal lines in the sand they needed to enjoy the more uninhibited side of sex.

This young woman was clearly in the second camp.

"Close your eyes," he murmured against the soft skin of her throat, letting her feel the wet heat of his tongue and the blunt pressure of his teeth against that shivery spot behind her ear. He whispered then, softly enough that he wasn't sure Marie would hear it over the wild beating of her own heart. "Pretend she ain't here. S'just you and me, honey. She won't touch ya. Won't talk to you. I don't share."

That was the truth. It was also the right thing to say. He felt the resistance go out of her and he lifted his head, checking to be sure the girl's eyes were closed before looking over at Marie, pointedly.

She met the heated gaze and gave him a casual little shrug that seemed to imply she was not at all sorry he was having to work to convince her choice— and in fact, she was impatiently waiting for him to just get on with it.

That pissed him off as much as it turned him on.

He was gonna make her pay for that.

He kissed the girl again. She tasted sweet and spicy. Jack and Coke and a little salty, too. He took his time, enjoying her soft little whimpers as he rubbed her against his erection. Making her want it. Bad. Finding those little places that made her writhe and squirm and clutch at his hair. Rubbing the rough stubble of his face against her skin. Licking. Biting. He wanted her desperate.

"I wantcha to do somethin' for me, honey." She started to sink to her knees and he pulled her back up, shaking his head. "Not that." He almost felt bad about her look of confusion. "Touch yourself."

He heard Marie gasp softly and growled in his throat, partly to obscure the sound and partly because lighting Marie's fire lit him pretty good, too.

"Babe—"

"Gets me fuckin' hot watchin' a woman put her hand down her pants." He deliberately used that phrase from the other night on the dock. He wasn't talking about the woman in his arms and Marie knew it, if the sound of her backing up hard enough to rock the sturdy stall door in the metal frame was any indication. "Don't think. Just do it."

She did it, hurriedly popping the button of her jeans, the zipper spreading wide as she slid her hand inside. His eyes flared. He could only imagine what was going through Marie's head.

"God…"

"Tell me whatcha feel." He liked the blush too much not to see how far he could push. "Tell me."

"Soft. W-warm…." The girl's legs shook as her arm began to move rhythmically. "Wet…"

"Push a finger in." He kept touching her. Breasts. Hips. Waist. Nape. Spine. Petting her with slow, maddening strokes. "I know it ain't whatcha want, honey," he crooned. "I know it ain't whatcha need. You coulda just stayed home if your own touch was enough." He didn't give a shit if his words were too pointed. He was having a hard time keeping this between the lines. "I got whatcha need right here." He pushed his erection against her thigh. "Deeper," he rasped, watching the small movements of her arm.

The most graphic thing about it was his words and the husky tone with which he'd given the erotic order. Her dark, floaty blouse pretty much hid everything but her full-body shiver when she complied with his demand. The girl's eyes slid shut and he risked a look at Marie. She was stunned into stillness, her hands clenched into fists and her pulse beating an unsteady tattoo in his ears. She smelled like pure sex.

It affected him, and not in a nice way. He was not feeling at all nice.

"Taste yourself."

The girl pulled her hand from her pants. He could see the glisten on her fingers, but she hesitated, eyes downcast.

"Look at me, honey."

She did and he leaned in close, putting the bulk of his body between the girl and Marie. "Lemme see you do it." He rubbed a palm against the obvious erection throbbing insistently under his belt buckle. Letting her see what she did to him. "Lemme take you there." He knew she just needed a little push.

He was right.

She brought her fingers to her mouth.

He nodded, pleased. "You ever done that before?"

She shook her head. He was a little surprised. She was young, early twenties, but she looked like the type who'd be pretty uninhibited in the context of a monogamous relationship.

"Tell me how it tastes."

Behind him, he felt the air vibrate as Marie shook.

"S-sweet."

"Good girl." That produced a shudder in both women. "Again." He reached for his buckle, feeling the power of that moment. He held both women in thrall, had what both of them wanted, even though that was two very different things. "I wanna see that little hand workin' between your legs."

Marie moaned that time, but the girl was too far in her own head to hear it, thank Christ.

"Stop," he ordered when he realized the girl was about to come. He chuckled when she whimpered, but she complied with his order. Maybe she'd always been afraid to explore her submissive side. For Logan, the experience was more about winding Marie up, but giving the girl a taste of something wilder was doing it for him pretty good, too.

The girl pulled her hand from her pants. "Gimme a taste this time." He swirled his tongue around the girl's wet fingers. She was right. She did taste sweet. "Mmm…" He slurped up the last of her glossy welcome with relish. It was hard to keep the animal leashed with the scent of sex filling his senses.

Turning her, he put the girl's back to his front, securing her to him with a thick arm across her chest. "Open your mouth." He smirked as both women followed that direction. "Suck." He pushed a thumb into the girl's mouth. She moaned around his thumb, flushed and panting. He guided her hands up to the hook on wall above her head. "Hang on, honey."

Her fingers tightened on it as he pushed his own hand down the front of her pants. She was wet and slick. Ready. Needy. His eyes moved to Marie, only to find her dark eyes were locked on his arm, watching the tendons bunch and release as he fingered the girl. The expression on her face told him that if he touched her like that, he'd find the same thing. A slippery welcome and a throbbing need to be filled.

It made the animal howl, wild to spread the slip and slick of her over his fingers. To penetrate her. To mark her. To claim her and own her and make her shatter against him.

"That ain't whatcha need either, is it? Even a couple of thick fingers ain't gonna put that fire out." Both women panted. The woman in his arms moaned as he stretched her on his long, blunt fingers. "Goddamn," he grunted, thrusting against her ass a few times until he got himself back under control.

He put his teeth on her neck, nipping until she whimpered. "I'm gonna make you come like this. Good n' hard. Then I'm gonna pull down your pants and pound ya against this wall until we both come."

Marie was bracing herself on the adjacent wall, clearly in danger of losing her feet. The girl in his arms came with a scream that she should have muffled if she had any damn sense at all.

Logan shifted into position and had the girl's pants pulled down before she'd even caught her breath. He gave himself a few lazy strokes before he rolled the condom on, hearing Marie's breath grow shallow and erratic. She liked seeing him touch himself. He wondered if he could make her want it enough to touch herself. Here. Now.

Fisting himself firmly a few more times because he liked the way it made Marie's eyes black and wild, Logan moved to enter the girl.

"No…" She twisted away. "I want to see your face…"

Christ. She was already turning, kicking off her shoes and pulling her legs from her pants. Standing there, cock throbbing in his fingers, he wondered if maybe he hadn't done too good a job with the little black-haired pixie girl. She was so far out of her head with desire that she didn't even register Marie's presence anymore.

They were all in too deep to stop now. Gritting his teeth, he met the girl's eyes, stormy green with lust now, and wrapped her leg around his hip. Her blouse slid up and he saw the faint tracing of pinkish marks on her flat belly that told him she'd had a child some time in the last year or so. He pushed that knowledge away, not wanting to think about anything but the sex. It wasn't hard to do. He was teasing her, rubbing the blunt tip of his erection between her legs and crudely stimulating them both.

"Hard," she whispered, squeezing him. "I wanna feel it tomorrow."

Hoisting her up, he shoved in with enough force that it shook the stall. The girl pulled him even closer. She ran her hands under his shirt, stroking the heavy bands of muscle and touching the hair on his chest and under his arms. She scratched her fingers into the scruff along his jaw, holding his eyes, clinging to him like a rag doll. Dragging her mouth up the stubble on his throat. She seemed to revel in all the details of his masculinity.

Catching Marie's eye, he grunted one word that could have been meant for either woman. "Move."

Marie moved, sliding her back along the door until she slipped past the corner so her back now was resting less than an arm's length away on the same wall as the girl in his arms. It was as close as he could come to fucking them both without actually doing it.

He was not gentle.

He used his hands and his mouth… and his _teeth_. Left a chain of bruises across her chest, pulling the blood close to the surface with his lips and tongue. Feeling the coppery rush under her skin but not tasting it.

Logan slammed into the girl, grunting with the force of the concussive thrusts that rocked all of them. Marie could clearly feel the vibration through the metal wall of the stall, heaving under her back as he pushed them all closer to orgasm.

The girl tipped over first, squeezing down on him with tight little flutters that made him grit his teeth and snarl. She turned her face away from them both, baring her neck submissively. He bit her then, hard. Marked inside and out. She'd sure as hell feel _that_ tomorrow.

Marie turned towards him. He looked back, face mere inches away from hers now, and grunted out his own coming. Eyes locked on hers, he pumped helplessly into a different body, feeling a strange disjointedness to be emotionally connected to one woman while coming inside another.

The aftermath was uncomfortable for them all. The girl needed help to keep her feet. Marie was staring at him unsteadily, watching him pull out and strip off the full condom. Goddamn her for not giving him even a few moments of privacy when he felt the most vulnerable. Spent. Shaken. Raw and exposed.

"Hey," he growled softly as Marie's hand reached for the lock.

Now he knew where she was running. And _why_. She urgently needed the same release he'd just given the pixie girl. Still— a hollow imitation of what it could be. Surely, she knew that now that he'd driven the point home so ruthlessly.

She turned and he threw her his keys. "Use my truck."

Her whole body seemed to shudder with the impact of his words.

"Bench seat," he couldn't help but adding, still stinging from earlier.

"Fuck you," she spat. But she took his keys anyway.

Her abrupt departure didn't make things any easier.

The girl in his arms finished zipping herself into her pants and used his bulk to steady herself enough to slip those fierce leopard heels back on. Her eyes were wet. Cloudy where they'd been fierce and stormy before.

Shit. Baggage. He fucking knew it.

"Sorry," she said, looking at the floor and wiping away the trickle of tears. "It's my anniversary," she added as if that explained everything. "Four years." Logan mentally adjusted her age up a few years. All her confession did was raise questions he didn't want to ask, but he understood there was a certain give and take to be negotiated in the aftermath, especially with someone who didn't do this kind of thing regularly. He wasn't that much of an asshole.

"He forget?"

The girl shook her head.

"Cheated on ya?"

Another head shake and a lot more tears.

"No. He died nine weeks ago in Afghanistan."

"Christ."

"'One more tour, baby,' he said. Country first, then family? He never even got to hold our son! How is that right? You're the first man I've touched in nineteen months."

Logan grimaced. That was too much intimacy. Too much honesty.

"Would he have been the man you loved if he put his honor aside for the comfort of home?"

"No."

She didn't say another word. He didn't either. Logan poured the weepy girl into a cab and was nursing a beer at the bar when the bartender brought him his keys and a message.

"Hey, man. You the Wolverine?"

"Who's askin', bub?"

"A brunette with a stripe in her hair gave me these. Said to tell you that you owe her twenty bucks."

"Shit." He shook his head.

"She also said to tell you to go fuck yourself. Looked like she meant it, too."

"She did."

He palmed the keys.

The thought of her getting off in the cab of his truck was nothing compared to the luscious scent she'd left behind.

It tortured him with every black mile that rolled under the wheels.

* * *

Up next: **Coals**. In which the Wolverine wants more answers and the Rogue wants her pound of flesh...


	13. Coals

**Author's note:** Happy New Year, y'all. If you're anything like me, then your social media is a sea of comments about the New Year (some more relevant/inspiring than others) so I will simply say this: To anyone who had a rough year and stuck it out, well done. While there is the temptation to be envious of those folks who seem to sail effortlessly through life, no sword was ever forged without heat and pressure. I don't see the New Year as a reset or a blank page as much as a chance to build on everything that's come before.

Also: It's pretty damn easy to raise a glass to a New Year that includes a new X-Men film, Captain America: Civil War, Star Trek Beyond, Batman V Superman (Affleck? WTF?!), Rogue One, Deadpool (hey, it can't get any worse) and Ghostbusters. Now, I am off to FINALLY catch Star Wars because I have managed to avoid all spoilers thus far, and I think it's highly unlikely my perfect streak will continue. May the Force be with you.

* * *

Logan thought Marie would sulk and he was right. She did. Took off for more than a week. Nobody knew where.

Typical.

He almost felt jealous. He wanted to get in the wind, too, but he didn't want to give the appearance he was running, even though that's exactly what he felt like doing.

He stuck it out instead, making everyone's life miserable. Running the team into the ground. Extra Danger Room sessions. Extra homework for his students. He took long drives on his bike that weren't long enough because he eventually found himself back at the school.

The face of the girl he'd screwed in the bathroom haunted him. She'd been more fragile than he imagined. Losing her husband that way— with a little one at home, too. Jesus. She should have had softness and instead he'd twisted her need to forget and to connect with another human being with his desire to make Marie see he needed her to give up more. The girl had wanted it, and it had been damned hot, but probably not what any of them had really needed.

Hopefully whatever few minutes of blissful blackness he'd given her were enough. Maybe she'd wake up in the morning feeling his touch on her skin and between her legs, and for a minute, she'd forget that she wasn't going to wake up alone.

Logan was so wrapped up in his thoughts, he didn't hear Marie approach until her shadow fell over him as she sat down next to him on the dock one sunny Thursday afternoon.

He said nothing.

It was Marie who broke the silence.

"You owe me a twenty, cowboy."

"Mmph." He grunted. "Kinda hard to collect from the Big Easy, though, ain't it?"

 _N'Orleans_ , she'd said, like a native. One of the first secrets she'd given up. The others didn't know, but he did. He knew _where_ she ran. He just didn't know _why_. Or what had happened in the time that he'd been away. What the hell had she been through that had made her so afraid of touch that watching him fuck a woman was preferable to actually feeling him touch her himself? They both knew she was thinking about it. It was his touch she was imagining. What the hell was keeping her from making that fantasy a reality? Her silence on that matter was infuriating.

"So they're only handing out free passes for taking off to Alkali Lake or Japan now?"

"You gotta mouth on ya, darlin'."

He dug out his wallet and handed over the twenty anyway, eyeing her as she shoved it into her jeans pocket. He always paid his debts and the unspoken dialogue there was that he damn well expected her to do the same.

"Bless your heart, sugar." She said it with the same inflection one might give to: _You're a fucking dumbass._ "You could start an argument in an empty house. You're gonna call me to the carpet after what came outta _your_ mouth the other night?"

Clearly she was still smarting from his little lecture about the difference between getting off alone or with a partner. He hadn't exactly been subtle in his attempt to hammer that point home. He'd wanted her to feel the difference. To reach orgasm and to be acutely aware of that hollow, empty feeling. To remind her how much better it could be, coming stretched wide on a thick stand of flesh. Feeling a heart race against hers; the echo of a roar in her ears and a deep wet throbbing inside her. Strong arms around her, pulling her close. A painful reminder of everything she was missing. He hoped she'd felt that keen sting all too well.

"Didn't hear no complaints."

"As if you would, between all the orders."

He ignored her.

"The scent you left behind don't lie, baby. You liked it, and the orders — including the one to get off in my truck — just fine."

"You're an asshole."

"So I've been told."

"Repeatedly."

Something about the way she said it, a blend of exasperation and admiration struck him as amusing and he chuckled, in spite of himself and the tone of their conversation.

And then he just let the silence stretch out. He knew she'd fill it, given enough time. Just as surely as she'd known he'd be game for trying to convince the woman she'd suggested the other night. Neither of them wanted to appear as if they were unwilling — or afraid — to toe the mark.

He was right, but it took her the better part of an hour to screw up her courage.

"It's not always better with someone, you know."

"What isn't?" he asked, knowing damn well what she meant, but wanting to hear her say it.

"Bakin' cookies. Jesus, sugar. _Sex_." She twirled a shiny curl of hair around her finger. "You're off like a herd of turtles today," she observed, laying back on the dock and covering her face with the straw cowboy hat she'd liberated from him a few years back.

"Thanks." He ignored her sniping commentary on his mental acuity, mostly because it pushed her buttons. And because he kinda liked it.

When she crossed her ankles, he could see dark dried mud caking the heels of her favorite boots. Wherever she'd been had been off the beaten path. That didn't come from walking down Bourbon Street.

"Sometimes it is better with someone, I guess. But sometimes it just hurts more," she murmured from beneath the hat.

Logan grimaced, thinking of the girl from the other night. She might have come twice, but he'd bet she didn't go home feeling anything close to good. He hadn't been feeling too sunny afterwards, either, despite the intensity of his orgasm.

He'd come hard, staring into Marie's eyes while filling the condom buried in someone else. Long sustained spurts that had left his legs shaking and the world fuzzy around the edges. Christ. Actual sex with Marie would be incandescent. He'd known that from the beginning, though— felt the immediate, electric connection buzzing between them. That's why he hadn't wanted her to get into his truck. She was trouble, slipping in under his defenses all too easily.

"How would you know?" It was less an accusation and more an invitation to tell him what had happened after things had crashed and burned with the iceprick.

And, apparently, after she'd given it up to someone _older_ at the school. The not knowing was really getting under his skin, but he'd be damned if he was going to ask her who it had been, mostly because he didn't want to give her the satisfaction of telling him to get fucked. It ate at him though. On missions. In his downtime. Playing poker.

He tried not to dwell on it, but the idea that he might be shoulder to shoulder with someone who'd felt Marie orgasm in their arms, free and wild and full of joy— that just ate at him. Not that she'd done it. He didn't begrudge her that experience. It was more the terrible dichotomy between then and now. And the knowledge that in the years that followed, he'd been absent for something that had affected her so profoundly. A watershed moment he'd missed. Maybe even one he could have prevented.

"Right, because hormonal teenage girls on the rebound are known for making stellar choices with men."

"So you did take advantage of the Cure?" He'd wondered. He sure as hell would have.

"Let's just say that wasn't my first time knockin' boots in a bathroom, cowboy."

That ate at him, too. Was she trying to relive moments in her past? Rewrite them? Replace them altogether? "Mmph."

"Most of it was the usual teenage bullshit. Drama. Sexting. Flirting and innuendo and experimentation with alcohol and sex. It's pretty tame compared to what's up here." She tapped her head.

"Up there?"

"Come on! Erik screwed a shapeshifter for decades— imagine the possibilities, huh? And that's not even the wildest thing _he's_ ever done. You're not exactly a schoolboy either, sugar. Between the showgirls and the cage bunnies and the barflies—"

"Shit."

"— And Jean-fucking-Grey." She hadn't raised her voice, but there was some real heat there.

"Watch your damn mouth."

It was a warning Marie ignored, and he couldn't help but admire that a little.

"I'm just saying I made a few pretty spectacular fuckups, but I managed to make a handful of good memories, along the way."

Logan peeled off his tank, wiping the sweat from his face before laying back on the dock and blocking the strong midday sun with a thick arm flung over his eyes. The breeze off the lake felt good. He could feel it ruffling the hair on his chest and under his arm.

"Along the way to _where_?" He was done being the focus of this conversation. It hurt too much and it was her damn turn.

"Wouldn't you like to know?"

"Do I look like the kinda man who asks shit he ain't interested in?"

She lifted her hat, marginally, and gave him a look from under the battered brim. To her credit, she kept her eyes on his face. Not too many women did that when he had his shirt off. Most women looked at him like a side of beef or a stallion they wanted to ride hard and put up wet. Dropping the hat back over her face, she settled back against the dock, squirming a little until the uneven boards were more-or-less comfortable under her back.

"Hey, if you think I'm gonna give you chapter and verse of every guy, every failed relationship, every orgasm, every—"

"Nah. Just the highlights, kid."

"What, like SportsCenter?" He could hear the amusement in her voice and it made him laugh. It had been a long time since he'd cut loose like that.

"Sure. They letcha know who scored, right? Hail Marys. Fights. Blood on the ice. Number of penalties. Shit called on account of whatever-the-fuck."

Now she was laughing too.

It made the dock rock pleasantly under him. Rhythmically. Like breathing. Or slow dancing. Or sex.

"Sugar, I was eighteen and touchable for the first time in what felt like forever. I danced. I flirted. I took a man or two home." _Man._ Not 'guy'. Not 'boy'. He felt like that word choice was significant. "Hell, once or twice we didn't even make it home. Gawd, I was nearly arrested once once for doing a dirty bump and grind with Jubes on a bartop in this skeezy dive in N'Orleans. Overall, a pretty good mix of: _Oh shit!_ and _Oh my god!_ , you know?"

She was talking, but she wasn't really giving him details. He could — and had — guessed at everything she'd shared so far. Except the mention of New Orleans. There had to be more to that story. A compelling reason that pulled her south again and again.

"Good."

His response shocked her. The cadence of her breathing changed and she grew silent. Sure, he could be a possessive bastard, but occasionally there were things that overrode that instinctive response. Marie's happiness, for one.

"Really?"

He just grunted. He wasn't going to go there. This wasn't about him. It was her turn to be vulnerable.

"How'd you know that girl at the bar the other night would say yes?" he said instead.

He heard her sigh softly. "Because I've been that girl, sugar." She was quiet long enough that he grew impatient before she spoke again. "I've wanted to, like, just unzip myself, step out of that old skin and be someone else for a while. Someone else who didn't hurt so much." She was still clearly that girl, but now she was terrified of being touched.

Fuck.

He thought of the pixie girl's dead husband and frowned.

"How'd that work out for ya?" Had she hooked up with the wrong man? Opened her heart and been eviscerated? Had some asshole treated her like shit? Or was this ultimately about her skin? It annoyed him that he couldn't ask her outright. That was the quickest way to get her to clam up again.

She snorted in derision. "You can't work that one out for yourself?"

" _Marie_ ," he warned. She owed him more than innuendo and vague, shadowy hints.

"Sugar, I just watched you fuck a stranger in a stall and got off by myself after. What the hell do you think? Does that sound balanced to you?"

"I was there too, kid." Which was Loganese for: _Hey, if you're gonna put yourself in that boat, better count me in, too._ Thankfully, she seemed to understand the unspoken context there.

They lapsed into silence. The sun felt good on his exposed skin. Under his back, the boards of the dock radiated up the heat of the day. He couldn't help but feel like Marie had grown quiet because the conversation had ventured into a place that made her uncomfortable.

Well, that was just too damn bad.

There were moments he'd revealed that made him acutely uncomfortable, too. In the aftermath of a scorching orgasm, lust burned away— he felt it then. Her eyes on his spent cock with Cheyenne between his spread knees that first night when he'd come too fast. The way Marie's gaze followed every little movement when he peeled off a used condom. How exposed he felt when he was unable to suppress a growl or hide the shaking of his hands.

"Why the bathroom?" He broke the quiet, unable to keep the question in any longer.

"Huh?"

"Why _there_?" He was thankful he didn't have to look at her face. "You usin' me to take a walk down memory lane?"

He felt the dock shift as she squirmed uncomfortably and then shrugged. "Maybe a little." Logan didn't like that one damn bit. "But it feels more like just kinda living vicariously through someone else."

"If it's just about gettin' fucked, there's easier ways, darlin'."

She sat up, leaving her hat pulled low so he couldn't see her eyes. "Who says I wanna be the one gettin' fucked as opposed to doing the fucking?"

He couldn't quite bite back the husky grunt of surprise. He sat up too, because he could feel the tension in her and lying prone with her in that mood was just plain stupid. The Rogue was dangerous and unpredictable and that never failed to make the animal rise. In moments, they were both on their feet.

"I'm not what you think I am, sugar. Newsflash: Marie is dead. I'm not that green little girl. I never was. I'm not innocent or naive— and despite the cause I suit up for, I'm not really a good person most days. So burn down that dadgum white pedestal you have me on—"

"Or what?"

"Or I'll do it for you."

To her surprise, he laughed. "Any girl who lights out alone across the Territories ain't a fragile, special little snowflake. Newsflash for _you_ , kid. If I really thought of you that way, if I didn't know you could handle every bit of what I dish out, do you honestly think I woulda invited you to participate in a sex act?"

She stood a little straighter, a little prouder, but her eyes were blazing. " _Participate_?"

"That what you tell yourself?" He shrugged, wondering if she was gonna come at him swinging. Wouldn't be the first time. "That you ain't a part of what's happenin' just as much as I am? 'Cause you fuckin' are."

"I call bullshit."

"Call it whatever you like, baby. Don't change the facts none."

She growled at him then, a pure sound of female frustration that shook the animal in her teeth and made him feel shivery and hot as fuck.

"You're impossible!" she shouted and he knew she wasn't truly furious because when she was, she spoke softly with a cold, flat voice that raised the hair on the back of his neck.

He shrugged again. "Yeah. But maybe it ain't me who's hangin' on so damn hard to the idea of bein' on that pedestal. Maybe it ain't me who can't let that little girl go."

"Oh, I'm pretty sure the whole damn school knows how easy it is for you to let her go," she hissed.

"Right, because puttin' these—" three blades sang into the charged air between them. "—through my own chest to get to you that night in the torch shows how little of a shit I give."

Stalemate.

But then, he was never much one for letting sleeping dogs lie.

"I'm goin' to The Church tonight." It was a fight bar in an old turn of the century rectory that had a well-earned reputation for being particularly brutal. "If you wanna come and 'not participate' in a sex act, be my guest."

"Ooooooh!" He winced when she screeched at him. She knew that made his ears ring.

"I'll be puttin' it to some pretty little thing whether you're there or not."

"Maybe I'm not in the mood for another lecture," she snapped.

"Then stay home with your vibrator. I don't really give a—"

She balled up her fist, just like he'd taught her, and hit him hard with a left cross to the jaw.

"Shitfire!" she muttered, shaking her aching hand while he licked the blood from his lip and just stood there, smirking. She must have been madder than he thought. She knew where and how to hit him to cause the most damage without hurting herself on his adamantium skeleton. Body shots. Kidney punches. Solar plexus. Nasty hit to the balls. Even he had weaknesses, and at present, the biggest one was standing toe-to-toe with him, breathing hard and looking like she wanted to rip his head off.

"Hit me again and I'll hitcha back, darlin'."

"Always such a gentleman."

"Baby, if you wanted a gentleman, watchin' me pound a man bloody wouldn't getcha hot." His gaze grew more predatory. "And if you were a lady, you sure as fuck wouldn't be humpin' your hand on the front seat of my truck after."

"Don't pretend that the thought of me with my hand down my pants doesn't get you off. If it didn't, you wouldn't have made that poor, desperate girl the other night into your puppet. How did it feel to have her acting out that dirty little fantasy for your viewing pleasure?"

That struck a nerve, but probably not for the reason she thought.

"Says the girl who wanted me to fuck someone in the bathroom for _her_ viewing pleasure? You don't wanna want it, but you do. That's what really pisses ya off." He gave her a hard look. "So clean your own damn house before you come shittin' in mine, sweetheart."

For a minute she looked like she was considering shoving him off the dock, but she took a step back at the last moment. Marie gave him the finger and stormed off, hips swinging. He stared at her ass because he knew it would piss her off more.

Every one of these conversations were painful. Each secret, each confidence she revealed seemed to raise more questions than it answered. For instance, that little gem about doing the fucking rather than being fucked.

He wondered if that was her subconscious trying to reclaim her lost sexual self or if it was a way for her to feel more in control of a situation that scared her. Hell, maybe it was just some leftover fantasy about claiming him, specifically.

It certainly made him rethink what her desire to see him leave a mark had really been about.

Especially if in her head, she was casting herself as the one making them.

* * *

Up next: **Flare**. The pressure and heat continue to build. All they need now is a spark...


	14. Flare

The Church was worse than Logan remembered. Rougher. Bloodier. In the years since Logan had last been there, it had become a place where mutants fought openly, showcasing a number of deadly abilities. A twisted sideshow of unspeakable horrors. Unfortunately, it meant he couldn't join them without revealing who and what he was. That irritated him, but Logan enjoyed his anonymity too much to piss it away so carelessly.

Something about it seemed fitting, though. Men still found absolution within the old stone walls, though not quite in the same way. It still involved blood and flesh and calling on the almighty, though, Logan thought with no small sense of irony.

He was almost glad the Rogue had declined to join him tonight. This thing between them was changing, becoming some sort of twisted game of sexual chicken. He wasn't sure how he felt about that. Aside from masturbation, it was clearly Marie's only sexual outlet and he wasn't sure how smart it was to withdraw that abruptly now that they'd opened Pandora's box. He was also a man with few hard limits and generally met his sexual needs whenever and however they arose.

While he wondered about the emotional aftermath, he was still making inroads. Still pulling little details from her. And as wrong as it was, he still hoped one of these times would touch her deeply and break through her brittle shell. Move her enough that she'd show him some kind of overt physical response beyond clenched fists and shallow breathing and that painfully exquisite scent that told him she liked what she was seeing all too much, despite her sharp words.

Logan nursed a beer, thinking on the law of diminishing returns, and feeling like they weren't there yet. That maybe they just hadn't quite hit on the right mix of elements for Marie to find that place where she could just let go. To give as much as she took. While he was tired of waiting, he certainly wasn't ready to give up. They were both tough, and it wasn't like they hadn't been drawing blood with each other since the beginning.

If he were honest, there was a part of it that was wholly selfish, too. He wanted to watch Marie come. To see her touch herself. To feel her give herself up to the moment— and to him. To acknowledge not just that she felt something deeply, but that _he_ was the reason for it. He needed to see the satiation reflected back in her eyes; to know that she felt safe enough with him to join him in that place. Even if he couldn't touch her— some part of him ached for that connection.

The animal was less forgiving. He had little patience for her skittishness and didn't understand her hesitation. He didn't need her submission or even her deference, but he was tired of waiting for her to join him on the field; to distinguish herself there, as he had. To meet him as an equal.

As the fights raged on, Logan couldn't help but wonder how things might have gone down if he'd had the chance to stand there toe-to-toe with ol' One Eye in a place like this. Thinking about Marie's first time with someone 'older' had him wondering about taking on the rest of the men as well. Hank could probably do him some serious damage. Stamina would be the deciding factor there. The Wolverine would win eventually. Same for Pete. That guy was built like an ox, but he wasn't built with limitless reserves. Logan was.

He had a fire burning in him too. The Wolverine was a nasty, ruthless son-of-a-bitch who didn't like to lose. He ate the pain, swallowing it and allowing it to become something terrifying, a freeing sort of blackness that consumed him. Survival came before everything else.

Calling for another beer, Logan let his mind wander. Macabre thoughts filtered in. He wasn't invincible. There was always a bigger fish. Another of Nature's laws. In a fair fight, he'd wipe the floor with Erik, but Magneto could no doubt crumple him into a ball like discarded tinfoil. Marie— Rogue. There was little doubt she'd put him down just as effectively. Sapping his strength. Using his gifts against him. Eventually sliding in close, touching him with those naked little hands and—

"Damn, hoss. That's some expression ya got there. What the hell are you thinkin' about, sugar?"

"Nothin'," Logan grunted, surprised by Marie's unexpected presence and annoyed that he'd been so lost in thought that he hadn't noticed her the minute she'd walked in. She'd changed. Dressed in black from head to toe now. Biker boots, jeans and her favorite beat-up black leather jacket with wings stitched on the back. _Death from above._ It invoked more a feeling of a valkyrie's fury than an avenging angel.

"Didn't look like nothin'."

"Mmph," he grunted, the tip of his cigar glowing red in the wan light.

"Tell me." Soft and low and shivery. Straight under his radar and right between his legs. That sweet, smoky drawl just did it for him. Always had.

"Thinkin' of you and me in there," he said, jerking his head toward the cage.

She laughed, intrigued. "Really?"

"Yep."

"That do it for you, cowboy?"

"Mmph." That was a little too close to the mark for comfort.

"Well, we both know how that'd end." She seemed quite certain. That unshakable confidence pissed him off. It made his cock twitch, too.

"Do we?"

"Sure. I always come out on top, unless you're willin' to kill me." She necked her beer.

"Don't tempt me, kid." He was only half kidding.

She looked him up and down, taking in his appearance— scruffy but not sweaty and spattered with blood. "You didn't fight?"

"Nah. Not really the kinda publicity the school needs, is it?" All it took these days was one dumbass with a cellphone and they were all fucked.

"History professor guts a man. Details at eleven," she quipped, easily following his lead.

"'Ro would be pissed," he allowed, wanting to deflect the conversation away from what he was actually feeling.

Marie laughed. "So you're more worried about her reaction than gutting someone? Typical."

Logan just shrugged. "There's lotsa assholes out there, darlin'."

She saluted him with her beer, pointedly. "Amen to that."

They drank in silence for a few minutes, until he just couldn't stand it anymore.

"Look, kid. Why the fuck are you even here?" Because it felt uncomfortably like a gauntlet being thrown down after their earlier encounter. They hadn't exactly parted on the best terms.

"How's your jaw?" she said in answer, rolling the bottle between her palms with a sparkle in her eye.

"How's your hand?" he shot back.

"Hurts like a bitch," she grinned.

"Heh. Good."

He couldn't help but be a little charmed by her response. She _liked_ to fight. Girl could hold a grudge for-fucking-ever, but never about _that_. Their personal history aside, it was damn hard not to like someone who could throw down, hold her own and grin while she took a hard shot.

She'd actually been more pissed at him for accidentally buying a bag of decaf coffee once for field provisions on a long mission than she'd been for the black eye he'd given her when their sparring got a little out of hand three days in. Neither of them did waiting well. To this day, she maintained — loudly — the meanest thing he ever did to her was deprive her of real coffee for a week.

"You gotta damn hard head, cowboy."

"Yep," he agreed. That applied in more ways than one.

"And a nasty mouth on ya when you're all riled up." Her smile had faded.

He shrugged. That was true.

"So? That don't make what comes out of it wrong."

For a moment, her mask crumpled and he saw a flash of pain so profound it rocked him back. He hadn't felt the urge to wrap his arms around her and comfort her since that day on the train so long ago. A part of him was surprised that she could still pull that from him, that he was still capable of empathy — of such softness — after everything he'd endured. She had embraced the Rogue with such fierce enthusiasm it was difficult to remember pieces of Marie were still under that steely determination and sheer, stubborn grit.

"You know," she said calmly, signaling the bartender for another beer. He braced himself for the sharper side of her tongue. "You don't know a damn thing about me."

"Whose fault is that?" he returned evenly, as he signaled for another drink for himself as well. He had the distinct impression he was going to need something to put the flames out when she was finished with him.

"And," she continued, as if he hadn't spoken, "you know fuck-all about women except how to choose an easy mark. How to get in, get off and get away. You can make them come, sure." He winced at the truth, delivered so starkly. "But they want you because you're the biggest dick swingin', sugar. It doesn't have jackshit to do with who you really are."

"Shut up," he growled.

"Or what?"

"Or I'm gonna smash the fuck outta your glass house, baby." His smile was nasty. "Because we both know the real reason you're here is 'cause you're horny and as much as you hate it, watchin' me stick my big swingin' dick into one of these cage bunnies is still better than gettin' off alone."

He wanted to hit her. And kiss her. And fuck her.

She looked like she wanted to scratch his eyes out. And she smelled like pure sex.

"Well, hell, sugar. Maybe I'm just here because the batteries in my vibrator died." The Rogue was fighting fit, tonight. And taking no prisoners, as usual.

He suddenly realized that even though they were trading verbal blows, it wasn't fighting so much as foreplay. They were both wild, breathing hard and ruddy with a bloodrush that burned hot and fierce. He was hard. She was wet. They were both hungry and on edge.

"Her," he indicated with a curt nod. He was not in the mood to negotiate. Fuck the Rogue. She wouldn't be dictating to him tonight.

He watched the Marie's eyes slide over his choice; a striking woman with outrageous curves, caramel skin, pale eyes and kinky wild hair that surrounded her freckled face like a cloud. He generally tended toward petite, athletic frames, but tonight he wasn't in the mood to fuck a bag a bones. Or to be careful. Or even nice. Tonight he wanted to feel a Rubenesque woman under him. To spend himself against soft, lush curves. Someone his brain couldn't so easily pretend was Marie when he closed his eyes.

"Fine," the Rogue snapped, finishing her beer.

"What? No marchin' orders from On High tonight?"

He was in a nasty mood, and it showed.

"Nope. Tonight I just want to see what you want."

He'd thought he'd had the upper hand making all the decisions himself without any input from her— but she'd twisted it somehow. This was worse. A painfully revealing look at his most intimate sexual desires; what he liked and _how_ he liked it.

A part of him was encouraged that she wanted to see it at all. To know something about the side of himself he'd always shielded her from. It was preferable to being the equivalent of her sexual puppet, but it was still damned uncomfortable.

"Anythin'?" he growled, wanting to make her as uncomfortable as he was. Where the Wolverine was concerned, anything covered a helluva lot of ground.

"Anything," she doubled down, sliding off the bar stool and looking at him expectantly.

"Fine." He threw her his keys. "For after." He had little hope with as bristly and antagonistic as she was tonight that she'd touch herself in his presence. Knowing she'd get off in his truck after was the next best thing. It was one part wanting to give her a safe place to go and three parts wanting to control her in the only way left to him. Making the Rogue do anything was a bit like wrestling with fire; impossibly frustrating and you still got scorched no matter which way you came at it. It was damned fun, though.

"No." She threw them back, eyes blazing.

Plucking them from the air without looking away from her gaze, he set them on the bar.

"Yes," he growled. "Pick 'em up or don't bother followin' me, kid."

Logan didn't even wait for her assent. He just turned and left, smirking as she snatched the keys with a huff and trailed after him through the crowd.

* * *

Up next: **Blaze**. To steal a phrase from The Man: _'I fell in to a burning ring of fire. I went down, down, down... and the flames went higher..."_

Also: sexytimz. You have been warned. ;)


	15. Blaze

Author's note: Sorry, y'all. This week kicked my ass. It's 1pm and I'm still in my jammies and on my third cup of coffee... But it's the beginning of a three day weekend, so there's hope. lol Onward!

* * *

Not five minutes later, Logan was buried balls deep, grunting roughly as he thrust. He'd found a cramped back office with a heavy, old desk that suited his needs perfectly. The girl was spread obscenely beneath him, her luscious thighs around his powerful hips. The idea that he was fucking a woman where countless sermons had probably been penned tickled his dark sense of humor.

The Rogue sat in a squeaky old chair directly across the desk from him so there was no way not to meet her eyes over the heaving body of the woman under him. She was slowly rocking the chair in time with his thrusts. _Squeak. Squeak. Squeaksqueaksqueak._

Was that deliberate or could she just not help herself? It made ignoring her difficult. Maybe that was her game?

He forced his thoughts away from her to the woman in his arms. Her hair wasn't the only kinky thing about her. She was delightfully uninhibited. More a mutant-groupie than a fight-groupie, he'd discovered when she'd pushed a hand in his pants and panted into his ear, " _Woy!_ You be a big one all over! Power comin' outta your pores. Felt you all the way across the room. What can you do?" It cooled his lust, but only slightly. She smelled of anise, tasted like rum and didn't ask him to use a condom. It was a combination that worked for him.

"I heal."

"From what?" she'd breathed against his neck while measuring the weight and heft of his thick cock in her palm.

 _Everything._ He left the claws in, sensing she was one of the ones who'd like the threat of violence and the danger a little too much.

"Bite me n' find out." She did, giggling when he shivered. A trickle of precome wet her fingers. "Harder."

She wasn't shy. She bit him sharply and he pinched her nipple in return, twisting to make her rear back so she could watch him heal.

" _Ô ô!_ " Her soft gasp of surprise was genuine. And appreciative. She ran her fingers over his chest, licking a smear of his blood from her full lips as she watched the crimson mark fill and heal and then fade away. His own brand of dark magic. "Again?"

Logan nodded.

The girl sucked his neck, a bruising kiss that she watched fade with a wild light in her pale eyes that were neither gold nor gray nor green. He saw it, saw the spark there catch fire. There was no going back now. Next she shoved his shirt off, raking her nails down his arm to watch the red trails disappear. He groaned, pumping into her clenched fist.

" _Chelbé_ ….beautiful," she crooned, peppering his stubbled jaw with little kisses. "You like pain?"

He nodded again, unwilling to say the words aloud, even now. Marie had him in in her head. She knew. She _knew_.

He tried not to think about her. It was ironic. Marie had wanted this to be about just what he desired, but to give her what _she_ wanted, he had to not make it be about her. Impossible, with the scent of her lust filling his head and the weight of her eyes on his body. Her heartbeat slammed in his ears, speeding faster the cruder he became.

"You be rough with dis girl."

It was somewhere between a request and a question, but he didn't miss the hopeful note. Wrapping an arm around her waist, he jerked her hard against the unforgiving bulk of his body with an inhuman growl.

"Not too rough!" She was shaking with excitement. "Like iron, you is," she murmured, touching him with curious fingers. "Hard all over, not just where it counts! Be more to you than healing, no?"

He didn't answer. He just fucked her.

Legs wrapped around his hips. Nails in his back. Teeth in his neck. Blood pounding in his ears and between his legs. He came with a roar, their two bodies plastered together. He didn't even try to put on a show or make it good for anyone but himself.

The girl's cursing changed from filthy whispered praise to outrage. She hadn't come yet. He laughed darkly, pulling out. It was all too easy to hold her struggling form. "Hush," he rumbled, not even bothering to dodge her ineffective blows as he pushed his thick fingers between her legs and used the semen he'd left behind to bring her to a decadently throbbing orgasm.

" _Tonnerre!_ "

Which he took by the tone of her exclamation and her boneless lethargy to mean: _Oh, my fucking GOD!_

He shoved back in, still hard, and fucked her through another orgasm. The squeak of the chair told him without looking the Rogue was still keeping time. He came again and kept going, enjoying the primal musk of come and sweat and the silky glide of ejaculate with all his heightened senses.

The girl's staccato exclamations, calling on deities he'd never heard of, became pleas to fill her up with his power, and then broken curses, and then only moans and gasps.

Logan opened his eyes and caught Marie's gaze. She leaned in, deliberately, and put her hands on the desk. A direct challenge.

The Wolverine snarled at her as he thrust forward. Sharply.

The energy transferred beautifully through the hardwood, jolting Marie in the chair as if he'd penetrated her with more than a visceral stare.

He did it again.

And again.

On and on until the girl clung to him and wailed for mercy. Logan came, this time with low grunts he couldn't silence, ejaculating stream after thick stream until his whole body shook. His eyes never left Marie's face. Her hands never left the desk. Not until the last hitching judders had wrung every drop from him.

When he was finished, the Rogue rose, swinging his keys from her finger and stalked from the room like a goddess.

The girl lay back on her elbows as he pulled out, not even bothering to close her legs as she watched the black wings on Marie's jacket disappearing into the dark. Her eyes found him, casually observing him tuck and zip and buckle before he moved around the desk to sit down in the chair Marie had just vacated. Stretching out his long legs, he lit a cigar.

"What you be?" she said with a soft sigh, running a hand lightly over her throbbing sex and spreading the slick of him up her thigh before finally sitting up and pushing her skirt down as she turned to face him.

"You know," he said tiredly, taking an aggressive drag off his cigar.

" _Non_. You not be what they are out there." Her fluffy hair bounced as she nodded towards the door and the cage that lay beyond it.

"Mmph," he grunted, opening various desk drawers until he found what he was looking for. Unscrewing the bottle, he took a healthy swallow. It burned all the way down.

" _Tchuuu!_ " It was a dismissive sound. "You be something _more_. _Loa_. _Mystères_. _Invisibles_. One of the Old Ones."

He snorted at that. "You guessin' or askin'?"

"Mmm… this girl be thinkin' you be the Baron Samedi."

Logan laughed outright at that. "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard."

"He be the spirit of the dead," she intoned with reverence.

That just annoyed him. Reverence was the very last thing anyone should be directing at him.

"Do I look dead to you, honey?"

She ignored him. "He lives at the crossroads between this world and the next. He be the spirit of death an' healin' an' fertility." She slid her slippery thighs together, pointedly. "He also be the spirit of resurrection."

The mirth faded from his face. "Fuck," he muttered, taking a long pull from the bottle.

"He be married to another death _loa_. Maman Brigitte. Powerful magic, her. The eternal flame. The ancient, primal female power. Her sign be the black rooster." The look on her face was wistful. "Was that her watchin' us?"

"Shut up."

"Baron Samedi be known for his love of cussin' and dirty jokes and fucking beautiful women." Her chin lifted proudly. "Always has a cigar and a drink in his hand."

The hair on the back of Logan's neck stood up.

"He got these?" Brandishing a hand between them, three gleaming claws appeared with a metallic hiss.

"Oh!" The girl jumped up with a small cry of alarm, tripping over her feet in her effort to put some distance between them, despite the fact Logan was still seated, unmoving, in the chair.

His semen crawled down the inside of her thighs in pearly droplets. Another intimacy almost too painful to bear in the aftermath. Thank Christ Marie wasn't here to see it.

The girl had stopped, still as stone, staring at him with disturbing fascination. The cadence of her breathing was different and her scent was changing. Fuck. She wet her lips, eyes transfixed on his claws and glowing like coals. It was only a matter of time now before she stepped forward. He knew what came after that and he didn't want to rend the girl with anything except his cock and a few sharp words.

One flick was all it took. Flesh parting so easily he almost didn't feel the sting at first as he opened himself from wrist to elbow with one deliberately brutal slice. It hurt like fuck. Blood poured from the raw wound, the rich coppery scent covering the musk of sex and the peppery, acrid stink of the girl's fear.

"Boo," he snarled.

The girl fled.

The Wolverine watched, taking another long swallow off the bottle as his arm knit itself back together. Pushing himself to his feet, he trailed his bloody fingers over the desk where the Rogue had gripped it so fiercely just minutes before. He could still feel the lingering warmth of her hands.

A touch that was not a touch.

It suddenly seemed to press in on him like a wave, the terrible distance between what things could have been — her small fingers wrapped securely around his tags and hope in her eyes— and the way things were _now_. Another woman's scent drying on his skin and Marie, alone in his truck, thinking about fuck only knew what.

His temper flared. The bottle left his fingers before he was even aware he'd thrown it. It shattered against the wall with a wet, satisfying crash. The shards sparkled in the low light like frost at twilight. It looked like ice and felt like tears, crunching under his heavy boots as the dark stain spread, creeping slowly like old blood.

The Wolverine stalked into the night.

* * *

Up next: **Charcoal**. In which the bridges they burned light the way to the next revelation...


	16. Charcoal

Author's note: Thanks for the patience, y'all. I've been babysitting. When your friend calls and is all- _IKnowIt'sLastMinuteButOMGIHaveAHotDate!_ What's a girl to do? We gotta stick together! Unfortunately, I can't smut it up and babysit at the same time, however I do realize that lots of one might eventually lead to one of the other. Heh. I am actually trying to slam up this chapter and run back over for yet more babysitting. Because nobody should have to wake a two year old up at 4AM to take hubs to the airport by 5AM. Onward. (with coffee) (and bourbon).

* * *

"Hey. Open up."

Marie damn near jumped out of her skin when he pounded on the truck's window.

"God!" Seeing that it was just Logan, she took a few calming breaths and reached across the driver's seat to pop the door. "Sweet baby Jesus! You tryin' to scare a few years off my life?"

"S'my truck," he pointed out, sliding into the seat with a grunt as he slammed the door and put his hands on the wheel. The nights were growing cooler as summer edged towards fall, but the cab was warm. Mississippi girl that she was, she'd started the truck first. The idea of her having to wait to shove a hand down her pants until the interior lights winked out amused him. Girl had about as much patience as he did.

The scent was killing him, though. He made no attempt to hide the fact that he was breathing through his mouth, dragging in slow, deep breaths to take in as much of the luscious scent as he could. Christ, he could damn near taste her on the back of his tongue.

One of her hands was naked, too. He could see her pale skin, a beacon in the dark. Her fingers were wet. Her lips, too.

Jesus, fuck.

"Screw _that_. You gave me the keys and a dadgum order to hightail my fanny out here, so feel free to piss the hell off if there isn't enough room in here for me and your fucking ego." She waved that bare hand at the door. "I brought my bike and unless you want me to break my neck on the way back, I'm gonna chill here a minute and catch my breath."

"Put your damn glove on," he rasped, feeling the world grow hazy around the edges as the Wolverine rose sharply, dragged from his lair by this fierce creature who clearly had no idea how close he was to the edge. He closed his eyes, struggling for control.

The metallic purr of her zipper was painfully loud in the silence.

Holy hell. She must have just finished when he pounded on the glass. Hadn't even fixed her pants yet. Maybe just finished licking her fingers. He was going to lose his mind.

"Why are you even here?" He could hear the distinctive rasp of suede on skin as she wriggled those damp little fingers back into her glove. "You so eager to come and gloat now that you're done puttin' it to Little Miss Voodoo that you couldn't even stop to wash your hands after? You stink of her, you know."

Everything was wrong. They'd both come, and yet there were none of the softer notes of satiation in their interaction. Just words that were more like bullets than actual communication. The kick. The recoil. Pain and blood. Only the kind of wounds Marie left didn't heal up right after.

"Had to catch you before you lit out for The Big Easy, didn't I? Maybe I don't feel like waitin' a week while you pout, princess." _Bang. Bang._

"You have no idea where I go or what I do," she snapped, crossing her arms over her chest defensively. A direct hit, then.

"Lemme guess. Hit the city and head straight for a bar. Ya get drunk in the French Quarter on overpriced drinks and kill some hours fendin' off fratboys and fuckheads who think that place is just about tits and beads and king cakes and throwin' up on Bourbon Street."

"So you've been there."

He nodded. "Lotsa good fight bars out towards the swamps."

"Yeah." Her easy agreement made him twitchy. The bars — and the people — it was a whole different world down there. Made the Church look, ironically, like a preschool filled with choirboys on a Sunday morning.

"But then you get tired of that shit and light out across the lake. Bayou, I'm guessin'." From Slidell it was a straight shot up 59 to Meridian. Maybe she had kin somewhere along the way.

Her face registered her shock. "How—"

"Muddy boots."

"Damn," she returned quietly.

"Yeah."

He always noticed everything about her. _Everything_. Case in point, her legs were still trembling. Whether that was a lingering result of her recent orgasm or a response to his rude intrusion in the afterglow, he wasn't quite sure.

She slumped down in the seat, resting her head back and closing her eyes. For a moment, he had a flash of her as a child, hiding her eyes and imagining that nobody could see her because she couldn't see them. She obviously wished she was invisible. At least, to him. A rare moment of weakness and one he knew wouldn't last.

Logan couldn't quite work her out. He wasn't sure what was up with this erotic game they were playing. Maybe it was all she could stand to give. Maybe she was just trying to re-live or rewrite her past sexual experiences. Whatever the hell it was, it clearly made her resentful, despite the unfettered eroticism.

He'd thought maybe she might be more open to him in the moments directly following her own release — before she'd had time to build her walls back up — but that didn't seem to be the case. She was as prickly, and as closed, as always.

That was really beginning to piss him off. It fed the rage simmering just under the surface. What the hell had made her this way?

"Stop looking at me like that," she murmured without opening her eyes.

"Like what?"

"Like a broken thing. I don't want your pity. I'm not a mystery to be solved, or an obligation, or a failed fucking promise."

That was a deep cut.

"Is that what you think I see?"

"Sugar, I stopped givin' a shit what you see a long time ago."

The movement was minute. A slight jerk he couldn't quite control, despite his stoic resolve. It was a blow that would have left any other man reeling — and damn her, she felt it across the bench seat and smiled. _Smiled._ Never even opened her eyes. He was thankful for that small mercy, and scrubbed a hand over his face tiredly.

The frown was immediate. His fingers reeked of sex. Marie was right. He'd missed it, as focused as he was on her scent. There was no where to run though, confined as they were in the cab. No place to hide. Just the painful truth, and a lot of it. He put his hands back on the wheel, glad the pitchy darkness hid the spatters of blood.

She turned on the radio, desperate to put something, anything, between them.

He turned it off.

"Keep talkin'," he rumbled. "S'your turn."

"I guess you really are as much of a masochist as they say."

"Takes one to know one." He fired that straight back.

She sighed, picking at the seam on her glove.

"I wasn't always like this, you know. I was better for a while. After Bobby and the Cure— after…" She stopped then and it was all he could do not to physically shake the words from her.

Logan just nodded instead, impatient for more but unwilling to interrupt even a halting flow of words.

"Just _after_ ," she finally pushed out, "While you were in Japan, I-I met someone. We had a good run. For a while." She shrugged. Logan thought she looked lost. Not at a loss for words, just… _lost._

"A while?"

"Eighteen months."

"Tell me about him."

"Well, it wasn't love at first sight, if that's what you think." She smiled then, eyes sparkling and alive in a way they hadn't been in a long time. Years. "Jubes saw him first. We were dancing and she was all: Oh. My. God! Get a load of him, chica! You can't tell me he doesn't look like the kinda man who fucks _hard_."

Logan made a face. That sounded exactly like something the firecracker would say.

"He was smooth and charming… delightfully dirty and way too hot to be totally straight. Or single." Logan felt his blood pressure rise. "I pretty much hated him on sight and told him that to his face when he tried to pick me up with some bullshit line."

"Heh." That sounded like her.

"He wouldn't give up. I wouldn't back down. It was pretty brutal." Logan had experienced the sharper side of Marie's tongue enough times to know first hand what she meant. "Round and round like two wet cats in a burlap sack. Jubes practically wet her pants. You know how she gets." He did. "It was hilarious. But you know me an' Jubes, and when there's alcohol in the mix, well…" Their nefarious adventures and close brushes with the law were legendary. "Eventually the mojitos got the better of us and the cops showed up because even for a dive like that, two half naked girls dirty dancing on the bar in a shower of fireworks eventually gets out of hand…"

"Goddamn."

"And when the shit went down and the cops rushed in, using us as excuse to bust something else goin' down in one of the back rooms, I suddenly saw a very different side to him. I got a real good look at what was under that smooth mask and I liked what I saw."

"And that was?"

Marie smiled a true, real smile for the first time in longer than he could remember.

"That scoundrel was a wolf in sheep's clothin', sure 'nuff. Dangerous. My favorite kind."

Logan grunted. "You always did have shit taste in men, darlin'."

"Yeah," she said, a little wistfully.

"He one of us?"

"That depends on what you mean by 'us'. A mutant? A survivor? A wanderer?"

"You know what I mean."

"Sugar, the Wolverine is the yardstick I measure by." That knocked him for six. "When I say dangerous, I mean it. Wild as all hell. Mean as a cut snake when crossed. A true Son of the South right down to his stubborn, Cajun soul. Courageous. Reckless. Seasoned. You know I like my men with some miles on 'em."

"Deflectin'," he grunted, feeling more uncomfortable with each revelation.

"Fine," she snapped. "A mutant, yeah, but not one of _us_."

Logan didn't know what to make of that. "What the fuck? Not one of _us_?" Not X-Men material? Not a white hat? Not the kinda man who knew how to take care of what he had? Definitely a survivor though, that much was clear.

"Not a _joiner_ , sugar."

Logan snorted at that. "Mmph."

"Some horses run better in a harness. Some don't." She shrugged. "Even you do better with a pack."

He ignored her personal commentary, not wanting her interpretation of his emotional needs to derail the conversation.

"Feral?" Her tastes had always run to the wilder end of the spectrum.

"No. He manipulated energy, changed it from one form to another. He could charge things with kinetic energy and the results were…" She shivered, and the look on her face said the results had been pretty damn explosive.

"So you shacked up with the Unabomber, or what?"

Marie laughed. "Bite your tongue! He was not the kinda man you saw comin' or goin'! Definitely not someone who could be found unless he wanted to be." There was an unspoken challenge implied in the words. Her man had been someone she considered dangerous, even compared to him. Someone she thought he probably couldn't track, even if he wanted to. The feeling of being pushed off the top rung was swift and painful. He lashed out before he could stop himself.

"And what did this Cajun dickhead think of a girl who was so scared of her own power that she shot herself full of the Cure and ran away like a scalded dog?"

He heard Marie's gasp and could almost see her circling the wagons as she bristled.

"He seemed to enjoy wakin' up naked with me every mornin'." He knew she wasn't done. That was just the first shot across the bow. "And puttin' his hands and mouth on every touchable inch of me, inside an' out." She took a breath and he thought the worst was probably still to come. He was right. It wasn't in her to pull a punch. "He didn't treat me like a child, or like I didn't know my own mind, and when he fell, he fell _hard_ — and you know what? He had the guts to tell me to my face. The truth, straight up, no chaser. And he listened when I told him how I felt. He didn't run. He kissed me and told me he loved me and what came after that was damned good."

"For a while," he spat, eviscerated by her words.

"For a while," she agreed, and he was struck by her response. No fire there— just acceptance. Old pain, entrenched so deeply she didn't even flinch anymore. So broken she just accepted the lash. That bothered him.

"And then?"

"And then _what_? It burned bright and hot before it flamed out in a shower of regrets and what-ifs. Nothing lasts forever. Nothing."

He grunted at the jaded cynicism that rolled so easily off her tongue. "You're too young to talk like that."

"Spare me the lecture, huh? I've got decades stacked up like snowdrifts in my head. Besides, you of all people should understand that much, at least."

"Me?"

"Sure, sugar. You're gonna outlast everyone and everything you ever love." He sucked in a sharp breath, wounded and bleeding freely now. The truth cut deeply. "But what the hell, right? It's all just dust and ash in the end."

For a moment, he was so stunned he couldn't even form a response beyond a whine, not unlike that of a wounded animal.

The Rogue said nothing. She just pushed open the door with cold, flat eyes and disappeared.

* * *

Up next: **Heat**. In which they both take a blazing leap out of the pan and into the fire.


	17. Heat

Rogue was in the cockpit of the Blackbird, taking her sweet time to run through the post-flight checks. Everyone else was long gone. Logan was aware this meant one of two things; either she was waiting for him to leave the hangar before she deplaned, or she was waiting for him to come talk to her. There weren't too many truly private places on the school grounds. The mission hadn't gone very smoothly and it was anyone's guess which way her temper would break tonight, but he'd never been one to back down from a fight.

Logan slid into the copilot's seat, frowning at the claustrophobic feel of technology pressing in from all sides. A man with so much metal in him was never meant for the sky. And as always, there was that fierce longing inside him for open, wild places without walls and rules. He much preferred the sunset to neon lights and the creak of wind in the trees to the cacophony of human noise. The modern world was an assault on his senses.

"Hey, kid."

"Go away. I'm _workin'_ here."

That answered that.

Logan stayed to annoy her. And because he knew they needed to clear the air. They'd been in the shit tonight— _serious_ shit— and it had necessitated him giving her some orders that hadn't gone down well. Oh, she'd obeyed because he'd trained her right and she was a damn good soldier. Christ, but her eyes— they'd burned with the promise of bloody retribution. Retreat was not in her vocabulary.

His decision had been tactical and not personal.

Mostly.

And there was the rub. This erotic game they were playing— it was changing things between them. The set of her jaw and the tension in her body told him she knew it. And that it was burning her up.

"Bullshit. You were done twenty minutes ago. You're just fuckin' around now, killin' time."

Her eyes narrowed. "If you've got me all worked out, sugar, then why the hell are you still here when you know I could cheerfully kick your patriarchal, overprotective, _egotistical_ ass clear into next week?"

Whoa. She was good and pissed. The woman in her was furious. The feminist was downright outraged. He didn't blame her, but he'd still have made the same call, regardless.

"You done?" he grunted, bracing himself. She was locked and loaded. Ready to let him have it with both barrels. Her body language alone told him this was far from over.

"Jesus! It's one thing to pull rank— but pullin' _that_ shit? What we do in our downtime...me watchin' you—" she faltered there for a moment, clearly uncomfortable, "That doesn't give you any special power over me! You're senior to me, here, yeah, but you don't own me, and you sure as fuck don't get to make decisions for me that I'm capable of making for myself. Not in private— and not in the field. I don't need you to save me," she spat.

He winced. He knew he hadn't been that to her for a long time, but hearing it straight out like that still stung. Once upon a time she had looked at him with stars in her eyes and seen far more than he ever imagined.

 _I don't want you to go._

"This where you tell me you're all grown up?"

"Nope." Marie rolled her eyes. "If you haven't figured that out for yourself yet, hoss, that's on you."

He almost chuckled at her acerbic response, but he was aware with as volatile as she was right now she'd probably come right at him swinging hard, and he knew better than to mix it up with her in an enclosed space. He could be impulsive and reckless, too, but he wasn't an idiot.

"It was a sound tactical decision." Goddammit. That sounded defensive, even to his own ears.

"Maybe," she returned grudgingly. "But that doesn't mean it was the only option, or even the best option. Just one that didn't get us all fucked."

And one that marginally excused his uncharacteristically conservative decision to use her as an asset in a way that didn't put her directly in the line of fire. She liked to be there as much as he did. More to the point, she was fully capable of holding her own. Battle tested. Bloodthirsty. Deadly as hell. Chip on her shoulder wide as the Mississippi. She didn't need to be coddled.

"Mmph." Logan just grunted because there was no flaw in her logic. He could see the hot spike of righteous fire burn brightly in her eyes when he didn't contradict her.

"You do it again, and I'm not givin' you the courtesy of this little chat beforehand. I'm just gonna take your damn head off. Fair warnin'."

"Pretty big line in the sand to draw, darlin'. You sure you wanna do that?" He didn't mind her lighting into him, especially in this case because was right, but she wasn't going to dictate the rules to him. No fucking way. "That kinda arrogant bullshit'll getcha knocked on that pretty little ass."

"It's not an arrogant position if I can defend it, sugar, and I _can_." She didn't even give him the finger. She just arched one delicate eyebrow at him. "And I _will_ if you _ever_ try to pull that shit again."

Her response irritated him but she was not wrong. A little of the fight left him and he rubbed a hand over his face with a sigh that was more acknowledgement than acquiescence.

She'd won and she knew it. The brassy scent of triumph stuck in his head, winding him tighter. Her smile couldn't have been more vicious if she'd painted herself in blood and danced naked around a bonfire, breasts bouncing and palms raised to the stars. It was an image that had the animal gnashing his teeth and his cock swelling against the leather of his uniform.

The Rogue noticed, of course. She seemed to have a special gift for finding the chinks in his armor. And for using them against him.

Her smile slid from triumphant to positively bloodthirsty and the urge to wrap his hand around her throat and make her acknowledge this _thing_ between made his fists shake. She saw that too and the spice of victory in her scent sat smoky-sweet on the back of his tongue. A feminine power that bled from her every pore and licked under his skin until his head swam. The savage wildness in the Rogue wanted him. Made the Wolverine uncoil and rise. But the girl was afraid. Damaged. And that's what ultimately stopped him from closing the distance between them and answering her call.

He needed to leave. Now.

Shoving his bulk up, he was forced to turn his broad shoulders to the side to pass through the narrow opening of the cockpit and into the cabin. It felt like a retreat even though she was really the one refusing to engage.

"You runnin'?" she tossed at his back and he could hear the amusement in her voice.

"You're the fuckin' expert. You tell me," he snarled, feeling his momentum — both physical and emotional — being pulled back. She was inescapable; a gravity well of temptation too strong to break free of, no matter his velocity or how hard he struggled against it.

"Bite me."

If only he _could_. Logan closed his eyes at the thought of her thrashing in his teeth. The heavy feeling between his legs grew more intense, harder to ignore.

Stupid. It was stupid to stay. He was too close to the edge, but he felt himself stop and turn, a growl building in his throat.

"You look like you could use a fight, sugar." Her smile faltered as she got a good look at his expression. "A _real_ fight."

He needed something, but it wasn't a fight. It wasn't a fuck, either. What he needed was for her to be real with him. To stop hiding. To stop running. To meet him as an equal.

He waited, their harsh breathing loud in the cramped space. One breath. Another. Time stood painfully still, the energy between them sharp and awkward. Finally, Logan turned to go, frustrated and disappointed by her pathetic response. He'd earned more than this half-ass bullshit. Fuck her.

"I want to watch someone ride you."

His long strides halted. That was— surely he hadn't heard that right.

Logan turned, head cocked at an angle as he tried to read her.

" _What?_ "

"Somethin' wrong with that fancy hearin' of yours, cowboy? I said I. Wanna. Watch. Someone. Ride. You." There was color in her face now. Flushed, but not with anger this time.

"Still livin' vicariously, kid?" It was a nasty little jab.

Marie reeled like he'd struck her. He sure as hell wanted to.

"Whatever you need to tell yourself to get the job done, sugar."

She'd been chafing under his authority all day. What she wanted wasn't really all that surprising. If she couldn't dominate him herself and expend that repressed energy with him to find balance again, watching another woman ride his prone body was probably as close as she could get. He hadn't expected her to acknowledge it, much less ask for it, though. Or to ever be the one to initiate one of these encounters. Giving him her opinion or even telling him what she wanted after he'd already invited her, yeah— but this was something new. A definite shift. She was striking her colors, boldly.

He wasn't sure if that was good or bad, but he wasn't in the right headspace to try to work it out just now.

"That's some hail Mary you just threw."

"We'll see."

His eyes narrowed. "You know what you're askin'?"

"Bless your heart. You need me to say it a third time?"

He growled at her and he could see she thought she'd won until he shrugged. "Fight bar's the wrong place. Need a bed for a ride like that." And a door that locked. Maybe that would finally be enough privacy for her to let go a little.

Marie's mouth hung open for a second. That was way more intimacy than she'd bargained for, but there was no way her pride would let her take back those cocky words now. Not after she had rammed them down his throat so righteously. He had her and they both knew it.

" _Shit_ ," she huffed under her breath.

"I pick where. I pick who." What she wanted was going to be difficult enough already, and like her, he didn't take direction well. He wasn't her puppet.

Marie said nothing. She was shaking, but that fierce light was still glowing in her eyes. Logan wondered what was really driving this. Was it just about pride and stubbornness— not backing down once she'd made a stand— or was it about wanting a deeper sexual experience with him that left her feeling empowered rather than resentful?

He wasn't sure it even mattered anymore, as long as she agreed. He'd reached his limit.

"Those are the terms. Take 'em or fuck off."

She made him wait for her answer.

"Fine."

His sharp teeth gleamed under the low lights of the cabin, but it was in no way a smile. "Deal."

"I want to watch you fight, first."

"No." That was too easy. He wanted her to own wanting him without that excuse— and he'd been burned and stabbed earlier on the mission. He didn't feel like taking any more cheap shots.

Her eyes were still blazing but she gave him a tight little nod. He didn't think she was done and he was right.

"Tonight." Her honeyed drawl didn't make it any less an order. His teeth clenched.

Logan looked her up and down and nodded curtly. Once.

"Wear the leather, darlin'." He'd always had a thing for her in that uniform.

It was not a request and the startled look on her face said the subtext had translated with zero ambiguity.

He was done pretending this was just about _her_.

* * *

Up next: **Combust**. Y'all know with that kind of wind up, it's only a matter of time before things go nuclear.


	18. Combust

Sorry for yet another late chapter, y'all. This apology comes with a public service announcement. Check the air pressure in your spare tire from time to time. Because when your actual tire shreds on the way home from work, the only person who is going to be amused by a flat donut is the tow truck driver. Pffffff!

* * *

"Another." The Rogue tapped the bar, ignoring Logan and purring, "Thanks, sugar," at the bartender as another overly generous double bourbon appeared. His lips thinned into a disapproving line. She was lit pretty good already.

Logan's gaze dropped to her glass. There was censure in his eyes and a warning, but he swallowed the words with a shot of his own because she was spoiling for a fight. "S'your funeral, kid," he remarked, leaning a little more into Cheyenne.

She was nestled up against his other side, sipping a scotch and soda. Her hand was already on his thigh and rubbing at the seam on his jeans. A clear sign she was good to go.

"If you pass out, I'm not gonna stop," he remarked, watching Marie bring the glass to her full lips.

"Jesus Christ! I don't need you to take care of me!" She tossed the drink back, eyes watering a little at the burn, and then slammed the glass on the bar with a rattle that made even the too-friendly bartender frown.

Cheyenne slid a little closer, rolling her eyes at the Rogue's tantrum and whispered into his ear, "So take care of _me_ , babe." She nuzzled his neck and rolled her hips against his thigh, indicating exactly what kind of 'care' she wanted from him. "You don't have to stop if I pass out, either," she teased, grinning as it drew a black smile to his lips. She had clearly lost consciousness in his bed before and found the experience enjoyable.

Logan pushed away from the bar. "Let's go."

~ooOoo~

The motel across the street left a lot to be desired, except for its proximity to the bar. The grizzled clerk barely batted an eye as Logan put the bills down for a room for three. With one queen bed. The clerk's bleary gaze followed the Rogue, though, a vision in body-hugging black leather. Big soft dick-sucking lips and that stripe in her hair— she was like some kinda Manga character come to life. He wet his thin, papery lips and fucked her crudely with his eyes. Women like that didn't come into a place like _this_. He'd never even seen a girl that hot in real life.

Pulling the keys from their slot behind him, he extended his hand toward the Rogue, letting the keys dangle and swing, his intent clear on his face. He wanted her to come closer. Just wanted a little touch. A little taste of that wild beauty the Wolverine was about to fuck. Hardly seemed fair. Mean, hairy son-of-a-bitch like that having two women while all he had was bad porn and an old sock to jerk off into?

His eyes swung to the Wolverine and for a moment he wondered if he'd said the words aloud. His face was twisted with rage and a murderous light made his eyes flash gold. The clerk felt a few drops of urine trickle out as the Wolverine took the keys from his petrified fingers with a grunt.

"You touch her 'n I'll touch you, bub."

He babbled a string of yes sirs and broken apologies, his English scattering in his fear as he stumbled back, ducking his head submissively. He sighed with relief as the Wolverine gave him one last hard stare and then a sniff of dismissal before disappearing up the stairs, flanked by both women.

Asshole.

Those damn cage fighters thought they owned the world.

Sure, women fucked men like them, but they settled for men like him. Steady, if meagre, regular paychecks. Somewhat dependable. Didn't hit 'em unless they really deserved it. He thought of his own woman and frowned. She was at her sister's helping with the new baby, leaving all the work she usually did around here to him.

Fuck her, too.

Tonight he'd imagine the woman with stripes in her hair sucking his dick and he'd leave the dirty sock on the floor when he was done.

~ooOoo~

The moment the lock clicked shut behind them, Cheyenne excused herself, closing the bathroom door with a smile full of promise aimed at the Wolverine.

Logan shed his coat and tossed the room key on the empty stand where the TV would have been, if this was the kind of place that had televisions.

Rogue loitered against the wall and he wondered if her world was spinning because of the drinks she'd gulped down, if she was purposefully putting as much distance between them as possible, or if the little worm downstairs had truly spooked her.

He reached for his tank.

"Leave your clothes on." His eyes flicked to hers. "Tell her, too."

"Not much of a show," he pressed, allowing his curiosity to override his irritation at yet another order.

"You still think this is about me seeing some _skin_? Newsflash. They have this thing called porn. I'm sure you're familiar, sugar."

A husky chuff of amusement rumbled out of his chest at that, but it faded as her words sunk in. What she'd wanted tonight— it was absolutely about the two of them. It wasn't about seeing his cock. It was about imagining him under her — inside her — with an explicit visual to burn it into her brain forever.

She couldn't say it though; couldn't even give him that much, and that just pissed him off. It disturbed him to feel so torn, angry and saddened by something that also made him irrationally, volcanically hot.

He sat heavily on the bed.

Marie sat in a chair in the corner by the table.

"Closer," he rumbled.

She complied, grudgingly, closing the distance between them by half before sitting back down.

"Leave your boots on, too."

He huffed, more annoyed by the distance between them than another tartly issued order.

"Closer." He pulled his lighter from his pocket and tossed it on the table beside the bed. He didn't want that digging into his ass later, distracting him.

"Shitfire, sugar." She stood, dragging the chair as she stomped closer and spun it, sitting in it backwards about a heartbeat from the bed. Close enough that her knees would touch the edge of the mattress if she opened her thigh wider and slid forward just a little more. "Happy now?" she snapped.

He adjusted himself casually. He wasn't hard yet, but he couldn't resist pushing some of her buttons, especially with her this close. "Sure. listenin' to you bitch and bark orders is a real treat."

He wondered what would happen if he wound her to the breaking point. Maybe that's what she needed. What they both needed. Some kind of physical catharsis before they eviscerated each other for real.

"I'm sure you'll find some way of—"

She stopped abruptly as he reached for his buckle, flicked it open and pulled his belt from his jeans. The worn leather made a slow hiss and the buckle clinked as he held it out to her wordlessly.

A gauntlet, thrown down decisively.

"What the hell?" she hissed. That wasn't a part of the deal.

"Somethin' for your hands, darlin'. You're fidgetin'." He was right. She was jumpy as hell, eyes darting around. Even more uncomfortable in here than she was the first time they'd done this, but he knew she wouldn't back down. Not when she'd been the one who'd expressly demanded this.

Marie snatched it from his hand as Cheyenne came out of the bathroom.

Logan's mouth hung open a second and a quick glance at Marie told him she was about a breath or two away from bolting. He could hear her pulse slamming in his ears. Cheyenne had edited her appearance slightly. Her long dark hair was down, loose around her face. Her platform fuck-me heels were gone and she had stockings on her legs now. The same short flippy skirt and blouse as before, but she'd put on gloves. _Gloves_ , his brain howled.

"Jesus Christ," he muttered, wondering what had possessed Chey. Amping it up was one thing, but this bordered on nuclear detonation. The white gloves were cheap and lacy. Eighties Glamour Shots meets slutty club dancer. Even so, just the thought of those gloved hands in his pants made his fingers clench into fists. He didn't think he'd ever gotten so hard so fast in all the years he could remember.

Marie's face was still with shock, pale except for two bright pink stains across her cheeks. Her fingers were gripping his belt so hard he could hear the leather creak and he was suddenly glad Chey had pushed this into a place none of them could hide from. She was the only one with enough brass to be honest about what was really happening. He might be using another woman's body, but it was Marie he was really fucking.

Cheyenne was no rocket scientist, but she was a survivor and she knew how to read people. Her survival had depended on that skill more than once. She saw what was needed and didn't hesitate. It wasn't entirely selfish. She'd never been allowed such freedom with Logan, never been allowed to drive the train, and she wasn't about to let either of them screw up her one chance to have him like this— like a real lover, in a bed and everything.

Logan was on his back on the bed and those gloved hands were rubbing and teasing and stroking him through his jeans before he'd gotten a single word out. Then again, he hadn't really made much of an effort and before long, the imagery and the throbbing between his legs was too much to resist.

He managed to grunt out a, "Leave it on," when Cheyenne's went to pull off her blouse, but she took the order in stride— a shrug and a smirk and then she'd lifted her head from where she was mouthing his cock through his jeans. With a hum of delight, she caught the thick, steely ridge lightly in her teeth. Her lips were reddened and slightly swollen when she lifted her mouth.

"So hard, babe." Cheyenne ran the heel of her palm from base to tip, where his precome and her saliva had wet the denim. "I can't wait. I need…" She caught her lip in her teeth struggling awkwardly to undo his zipper with the gloves. "Damn," she muttered tugging at the button and zipper, but slapping away his hands when he tried to help.

Logan's eyes flicked to Marie. She was nodding, some automatic sympathetic response to gloved fingers struggling with a stubborn fly, but she was also breathless and glassy-eyed with lust. As desperate for Chey to open his pants as he was.

The first stroke almost had him coming in her hands. Fuck. The lace was rough on his engorged skin, the friction almost too much as he rocked up into her clenched fist. Marie's gloves were largely satin or fine leather. Now he knew why. It hurt, but it hurt _good_ and the need to shove in deep and thrust was overwhelming.

Dragging her hands away, he put a thumb at the base of his cock and pushed it upwards in invitation. It ached, full of dusky blood that pounded between his legs and under skin in a maddening, driving rush. That primal male imperative. _In. In. In._

Both women whimpered at the sight of his heavy, veined cock rising from the spread of worn denim and thicket of dark hair. He knew from experience it was the girth more than the length that drew that reaction. A steady trickle of fluid leaked from the tip now, a showy testament to his virility and an unmistakable indication of his level of arousal.

Catching his eye, Cheyenne dipped her head and sucked him, swirling her tongue, a maddening touch that was as intense as the gloves had been, just in a different way.

"Unngh." He couldn't stop from bucking up into her mouth.

"Mmm…" she pulled off, rubbing her lips together as she moved over him. "You taste good, babe."

"Sit on me," he growled impatiently. His eyes darkened as he slid his hands up under her skirt. She was bare underneath and he was glad of it, aware her attempt at creating an authentic fantasy experience probably wouldn't bear him popping the claws and cutting through stockings and underwear.

She didn't put a condom on him either but before he could process that, she was rubbing his tip through her slick folds and sinking down fast enough to drive an involuntary grunt from his chest and a shameless moan from her.

"God! So thick! So deep this way…"

Marie's breath stuttered, becoming even more shallow and erratic. She, too, was deeply affected by that first intense moment of penetration.

He shifted, hips flexing as he prepared to thrust.

"Wait a second, babe… please..." His hands tightened on Chey's hips and he could feel his cock slipping deeper as that sweet pink clench gripping him fluttered and softened. "I just need a second…"

"I like a tight fit, honey." Still, he didn't want to hurt her. He moved his hand to touch her but she pulled his fingers away from where they were joined and grinned down at him, pinning his hands above his head with a playful smirk.

"No touching." She might be taking this a little too far, giving a man like him orders in bed, but he'd wanted her to ride him and she had her own fantasies to live out. Pushing his hands flat to the bed with an enthusiastic flourish, she leaned in and kissed his neck, sucking that spot behind his ear that made him quiver. "Keep 'em there." She pushed his wrists against the mattress one more time for emphasis and sat up, eyes heavy-lidded with desire as she took in the powerful man lying supine beneath her spread thighs.

He flexed inside her, watching her shudder. A little reminder of who was really in charge, despite their respective positions.

She rode him with absolute abandon. Slowly at first and then hard enough to make her whole body shake and whimper with the impact. Past propriety. Past embarrassment and shame. Arching and humping and grinding as her face twisted in agonized pleasure. It was purely physical, a surrendering to something wholly carnal and powerfully feminine.

The musk of her sweaty body. The rippling of her taut muscles. The fluttering clench that told him she was going to come. Hard. She did with a hoarse cry, collapsing against him almost immediately.

Logan rolled her to her back before she'd even finished convulsing, pushing her knees to her chest so he could go deep. "I needta fuck," he rasped against her throat, nipping and biting and pushing inside even as she nodded her consent. Her eyes were closed. She was still coming back to herself, anchored to this world by small hands clenched in his tank.

He shoved in deep and then pushed further until she whined. He caught Marie's eye. She'd stretched out her legs to press against the edge of the bed. She felt every last juddering thrust. Every tremble. Every jerking flex of his hips.

She was close enough that he could have put his head on her knee if he'd wanted to. Christ the smell of her, slick and wanting in that leather. Hips shifting in need. Body quivering. All but riding that fucking chair when she could be riding him.

He pounded harder, wild now. On the edge of true violence. His orgasm rose. Cheyenne felt it, recognized the stuttering change in his rhythm and she pushed at his chest.

His eyes blinked open and he was aware that she was pulling at his hair and whispering in his ear, but it took a few moments for the words to penetrate. The animal had him firmly now.

"...C'mon, babe. Let her see…" She pushed at him again, harder this time. "Let her really see what she's missing. Pull out. Come on me. Show her. Let her _really_ see you."

He wasn't able to make words rise, and he had to fight the instinct to just let go; to hold the female beneath him still and plant his seed deep— but what she'd proposed? He liked that. Liked it enough to rear back on his knees and shove up her shirt, fisting his wet cock roughly and grunting out his orgasm as he spattered her flat white belly with stream after stream of pearly ejaculate.

Perched as she was on the chair, Marie not only felt and heard every rasping grunt, but her face was inches away from Logan's pumping fist. She could have leaned in and licked the glistening trickle dripping from his fingers if she'd wanted to. Logan sat back on his heels, cock still in hand, aware but still not quite free of the animal's fierce grip. He licked his wet knuckles, panting roughly.

Cheyenne watched him with a slow smile of utter satiation, petting his thigh with the sole of her foot while he came down. She watched his eyes, that odd sea change from gold to hazel and then she looked down at her belly, humming contentedly as she licked away a stray droplet from her chin. He always came a lot. Tracing two fingers through the iridescent rivulets, she held them out to Marie.

"Go on. Taste him," she urged, completely misreading Marie's utter stillness. It wasn't shyness or even hesitation swimming in her watery eyes. "It's okay, really…"

Shunting aside the animal's primal, enthusiastic response to the idea of Marie taking some of him inside of her, Logan forced the words to rise because he knew Marie all too well. This was so far beyond too much that even the animal could recognize her acute distress. She was gonna bolt any second.

"Darlin'—"

"NO!" She scuttled backwards, falling off the chair and coming up from the floor in a fighting crouch, defensive and bristling, and as wounded as he'd ever seen her.

Violated. Humiliated.

 _Ashamed._

"Shit." In his haste to reach her, he tripped over his boots, tangled up in a crush of sweaty denim as he jerked his pants up with hands that were still none too steady.

"Stay away from me!" She was almost to the door, face burning. She was shattered, but that magnolia steel kept her hands and voice from shaking her to pieces in front of him.

"Kid, wait—"

Cheyenne was apologizing over and over, even as she stripped off the gloves and used them to wipe away the shivery trickles of semen from her belly.

Marie whirled and he thought for one heart-stopping moment she was going to pull off her glove and use her power against him. Instead she stared at him, tears in her dark, haunted eyes.

"I'm leaving. Now. If you follow me, I will never, _ever_ talk to you again. Do you understand?" It was that cold, flat voice that raised the hair on the back of his neck.

"Yeah. I get it."

"Good."

And then she was just gone.

* * *

Up next: **Char**. Scorched earth and a cover from the Man in Black:

 _What have I become  
_ _My sweetest friend  
_ _Everyone I know  
_ _Goes away in the end..._

 _And you could have it all  
_ _My empire of dirt  
_ _I will let you down  
_ _I will make you hurt..._


	19. Char

The leaves were beginning to turn by the time Marie came back. Summer's long yellows and dry, brittle greens had slipped quietly into fall's warm riot of persimmon and gold. All of it seemed less vibrant without her until one afternoon she turned up in the hall outside his classroom with a tan and paper bag that had the unmistakable shape of a six pack of sweating longnecks.

Logan dismissed his class early, as unable to focus on the Tet Offensive as the room full of teenagers on that crisp, Friday afternoon. They scattered, as only jubilant teens at the beginning of an unexpectedly long weekend can. Marie put the bag on his desk and walked through his classroom, fingering the spines of the hundreds of books messily lining the walls before winding back up at his desk. She sat on it as if she owned it, legs swinging absently like a child on a tailgate.

In the last few weeks, Logan had done a lot of thinking about what had happened. Wondering where he went wrong. And why. For a while he'd wondered if maybe he'd misread the entire situation. Maybe she'd been trying to relive a lost moment with her man. That Cajun prick. But then, she'd had the Cure when she was with him. He'd fucked her. Loved her. Made love to her.

 _Every touchable inch of me, inside and out._

Logan would never, ever forget those words of hers. Those sharp spires had pierced him deeply. Maybe things had fallen apart when her powers came back. Maybe the Cajun couldn't deal with untouchable, deadly skin. Maybe he hadn't known what a good thing he'd had until it was gone. Hell, maybe he did know and he'd just pissed it all away doing something stupid. Marie would never stand for anyone stepping out on her. She was too proud. And too strong. Too softhearted, too.

He felt bad for Cheyenne, as well. What she'd done had backfired horribly, but it had come from a good place. She'd tried to help. To include Marie. Her mistake—and his— had been assuming Marie _wanted_ to be included.

It didn't make any sense, though. Why did Marie keep prodding him and pushing him? Suggesting women. Scenarios. _Positions._ What the fuck? Those inclusive things— those were _her_ ideas. She was in control. She'd included herself.

Nothing made any sense anymore.

Logan, uncharacteristically, was the first to break the thick silence. "Hey, kid. Miss me?"

He expected the usual warm hum of denial and cocky head tilt and was surprised by her response.

"You know, I think I kinda did— when I wasn't busy pokin' my little Logan voodoo doll full of pins." He chuffed at that, not quite sure if she was kidding. "Which just proves I'm as fucked up as everyone thinks I am."

The personal admission was offered so freely he was momentarily struck mute. It typically took a hell of a lot of work to pry any such details from her. She still hadn't once met his eyes and that was unlike her, too. Marie might not be forthcoming, but she wasn't typically the shy sort. Once or twice he'd caught her looking at his hands and blushing and it wasn't difficult to work out why, given the graphic nature of what she'd seen last time they were together.

"You okay?" His words were husky and quiet.

"No."

Logan had no idea what to say to that. She was finally being honest and he found himself floundering where he would have normally blazed ahead.

"Wanna get the hell outta here?" He needed to be outside. Feel the cool wind in his face and to be able to see the open sky. It was easier to think with dirt under his feet and the warmth of the sun on his shoulders. And there was a better expectation of privacy, too.

That made her laugh a little. "Leave? When I just got back?" She slipped off his desk. "I could stretch my legs a little, yeah."

Maybe she really needed to, though it was more likely her uncanny ability to read him that had prompted her easy acquiescence.

The woods enveloped them, welcoming back one of its own with a jaunty flutter of fiery leaves and the solemn majesty of old growth trees, stately and solid. Dappled sunlight fell on them both, kissing that streak in her hair until it glowed.

The steady movement helped. Grounded him, somehow. He was uneasy. While they didn't usually talk about the sex afterwards, the conversations that followed tended to be rocky, full of thorny emotional issues and painful revelations. This time, though, Logan was uncomfortable with how things had ended before. While he didn't really want to open up that can of worms, he still felt like it should at least be acknowledged.

"I'm sorry. About before. I didn't know Chey was gonna—"

"I don't want to talk about that. It's fine."

He grunted. It was most definitely _not_ fine. Marie was more jumpy than usual and the faint color in her face, even now, suggested she was dwelling on it too. Remembering. Reliving the wholly carnal experience in graphic detail.

"If we ever do this again, and that's a damn big _if_ , sugar... then never again with _her_."

Logan nodded his agreement, more than a little surprised she'd even consider another walk on the wild side with him after what had happened last time. "Fine. I ain't married to the idea of it havin' to be her."

Marie had a strange expression on her face. One he couldn't read.

That made him uneasy. Starting one of these conversations in such an unstable place probably wasn't smart. That feeling of expectation was still there, though. Buzzing between them. It was her turn. She'd had a front row seat, literally, to an intense orgasm. He had let her see everything.

 _Everything._

Not just every spurt and shudder— it was so much more than that. Afterwards, he'd realized that he'd probably given away far more than private graphic details. It was likely that in that unguarded moment, his face had been a open book, revealing not just an intense longing for a more intimate, physical connection with Marie, but he imagined his heart had probably been in his eyes as well.

It made him feel vulnerable and defensive and annoyed that what she revealed to him in return was so paltry in comparison. Little more than crumbs from her table, and sometimes not even that. He could feel his resentment building, burning under his skin and even the stillness of the forest didn't help the way it usually did. He also couldn't help but wonder what Marie would have done if he'd been the one to offer her a taste instead of Cheyenne.

It was a difficult question with no easy answer. Story of his life, especially when it came to Marie.

For a long time they walked in uneasy silence. The shadows lengthened and cooled, even as the colors in the sky bled into vivid apricot and fiery pink as the sun edged lower.

"I went home to see Mama."

He was so shocked by her unexpected words that he stopped walking. There she went, slipping in under his guard, just like always.

His reaction seemed to please her and she perched herself on a fallen log, picking at the moss and leaves absently. "I really wish I hadn't left that beer on your desk. I could totally use one right now."

"S'probably already been liberated," he returned, finding his voice and moving to lean against a nearby tree. Close, but not too close.

"Please. Who'd be stupid enough to steal from the Wolverine? You could probably have a stack of hundreds on your desk marked _'Uncounted cash for booze and hookers in Vegas'_ and nobody'd lay so much as a finger on it."

"You would."

"Yeah." She smiled. "But then I'm not exactly known for having the best judgment, now am I?"

She didn't expect a reply and he didn't give one. "How're things back home?" he said instead, unwilling to let that thread of conversation slip away entirely like a stone sinking without a ripple.

It had been one damn big stone.

"Weird."

"Weird how?" Because a one word answer was not going to cut it. Not anymore.

"I dunno. It feels too small somehow now. It was home, but it's not anymore. Familiar… but… not. My room is a moment frozen in time, like a shrine to the life I left behind and not the sanctuary I remember. They're my things but nothing fits. It all makes me feel weird. Anchorless."

"Yeah." He knew that feeling all too well.

"I have all these memories of growing up there. The first time I rode a bike. Swinging sparklers on the 4th of July. Skinned knees and fireflies and backyard barbecues and piano lessons. Thanksgiving dinners and Christmas mornings. Mama's sweet tea and summer vacations and sleepovers with my best friend. Things we all remember."

Logan flinched a little at that, but she didn't notice, lost as she was in the past. Not everyone had those bucolic childhood memories.

"But it wasn't the same, even though the things in the house were the same. School pictures lining the hallway. My bronzed baby shoes on the mantle, like always next to the shadowbox with my christening gown and booties knitted by Mama. Even—" her voice trembled, "Even the marks on the wall in the kitchen where Mama measured me every birthday until I ran away." She had tears in her eyes now. "I've grown half an inch," she added absently and he wondered if she'd written Marie or Rogue by the new line.

"Sounds like good memories." Painful to think on, maybe, but still good.

"Mama's different... Shinier. Freer." She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Daddy died a few years back."

That surprised him. He didn't offer up condolences, aware she'd had a rocky relationship with her bigoted, small-minded father even before she manifested, but he was surprised she hadn't told him that her dad had passed. "You never said."

"No, I didn't, did I?" Her head came up. "What did you expect?"

"Maybe for you to tell me what's goin' on with you." When she snorted at that, he added, "The big shit, at least." For fuck's sake. She'd lost her _father_. Maybe that's where things began to change? She wouldn't be the first fatherless girl to wind up in a bad place.

"Oh sure. I'll just interrupt you mournin' the love of your life and cryin' into your _sake_ to tell you my problems." He sucked in a sharp breath at that. That cold detachment was deliberately cruel. And the words painfully true.

"I didn't lose her. I _killed_ her," he snarled.

"Bullshit. She killed herself. Selfish until the end. I heard about it from the others. Do you even know how many people she killed? Dozens? Hundreds? Even Charles—" Marie tripped over the name, her voice hitching. "He was the first person to ever accept _all_ of her. He loved her even more than her parents and she tore him apart! She didn't give a shit who she hurt, as long as she got what she wanted in the end."

"Watch your fuckin' mouth."

She ignored him.

"She wanted to die because she couldn't live with what she was."

"Says the girl who shot herself up with the Cure for some _boy_." He was being shitty, but fuck. She pissed him off.

"That's not what I did and you know it!"

" _Every touchable inch of me, inside and out._ That's whatcha said about that Cajun, ain't it? I thought it was for the iceprick, but I guess you just meant a different boy."

"I did it for _me_."

He knew that all too well. Anything to make the pain stop. She didn't want to die. She wanted to _live_. Still, his blood was up and he didn't give her a goddamn inch.

"Whatever you needta tell yourself, kid."

Her eyes narrowed.

"So your beef is isn't with anything in the past — but that I didn't _tell_ you? Christ, Logan! I'm not clairvoyant. It's not like I had any way of contacting you, even if I wanted to. You were just _gone_. If you missed out on my life while you were drinkin' and fuckin' your way across the world, that's on you."

She had a point, but so did he. "Been back for a couple of years now."

"And? You just expected everything to be the same as it was before? Grow up, sugar. Nothing stays the same forever. Not even you. There's so much you don't know. So much!"

"Tell me, then."

"It's not that easy. You don't just get to waltz back in here and have my personal life handed to you on a platter! You wouldn't like what I served up, even if I felt like sharing."

"Try me."

She was furious, but he could see she was considering it. Weighing what to say, what to share. Girl never could resist a dare.

Her eyes blazed with memories and in that unguarded moment, he saw her face change. Grief. Love. Pain. Rage. Sorrow. Joy. Shame. Vivid flickers of true emotion before she managed to force the tidal wave of feeling back. She blinked a few times and then with anger burning bright and hot she stared him down, defiantly.

"I was married."

If he hadn't been leaning against the tree, he would have lost his feet.

" _What_?"

He'd been prepared for her to confess she'd killed someone with her gift and liked it, or that she'd fucked her way through too many men to count before winding up with the Cajun, or maybe even that she was glad her dad was dead— but _married_?

He knew it was wrong to feel possessive of her, but the spark that burned so brightly in her had come from him in that night in the torch. She drew breath because of _him_. Because the animal had fought for her, and bled for her, and died surrendering his gift to her so her flame wouldn't be extinguished forever.

She was his in ways people— humans— would never recognize. And she'd given herself to someone _else_? Sex he could understand... but marriage was another matter entirely. A joining of something beyond the physical.

"Told you," she snapped, taking in his stunned silence and the hard clench of his jaw.

"You're lyin'. Tryin' to fuck with me."

"You mean you wish I was."

He growled at that because she was damn right.

"When?"

"When not _who_?"

"I fuckin' know _who_. That Cajun dick." He glared at her, hating the look in her eyes, even now. "What? I didn't go diggin' if that's what you think." She did not look convinced. "Your face changes when you talk about him." Scent, too— but he didn't want to go there.

"Remy." He hated even more how she said that name. There was a gravitas there. Good or bad, she'd had some miles with the man and they'd left a mark. She might have had the Wolverine inside her head, but there was someone else out there who still probably knew her better. Some other man owned her heart. The heart that beat because of him. Because she'd taken what he was— _all_ that he was — inside her, not once but twice. She'd taken his wild light and made it her own.

"I don't wanna know his name."

"Remy Etienne LeBeau," she fired back just to push his buttons.

It worked.

"Shut up."

"Told ya you wouldn't like it."

He ignored her. "Answer the fuckin' question. _When_."

"Why does it matter?"

" _Marie!_ " he thundered. He'd damn well have that answer from her, at least.

"Fine. Not like it matters anyway. We met the summer after I turned nineteen." Not all that long after he'd split, then. He was arrogant enough to believe those two things were not entirely unrelated. "I was divorced before I was twenty-one."

"Mmph."

"I'm assumin' that's not the grunt of: _Gee, I'm happy ya had somethin' good for a while_."

"Damn straight. It's the grunt of: Women should be fuckin' grown if they're gonna get hitched."

"Do you even hear yourself? What patriarchal bullshit! How many _kids_ do you know who _remember_ Bull Run, sugar? The putrid trenches at Marne? I know the brutal, bloody beaches at Normandy. I can still taste the acrid stench of burning bodies at Auschwitz." She probably saw the horror on his face, but she didn't stop. "Nagasaki. Hamburger Hill. Weapon X."

"Jesus Christ."

"I have decades— _centuries_ of unspeakable things in my head, so let's stop pretending that I'm Polly-fucking-anna, okay?"

"It don't make it right." He was dug in, stubborn to the end.

"Oh please! Spare me your condescending bullshit, huh? You're what? Closing in on the two century mark? Back in your day, they married a hell of a lot younger than that. How do you know you know there isn't some wife in your past who was fourteen or fifteen or sixteen?"

"Shut up!"

"No. You wanted this. You pushed. You're always after me to tell you this shit. It's not my problem if you don't like hearing it. In fact, I warned you that you wouldn't and you still dared me!"

"That's a load of shit."

"No it's not. You only want to hear things about me if they fit neatly with whatever you imagine I'm really like— not that you ever made much of an effort to find out. As long as it's within the scope of that Marie box you have in your head— then fine, but I'm not allowed to color outside the lines. Even with you. How ironic is that, considering how much you hate boundaries of any kind?"

"Pretty damn cocky of you to even assume there is a Marie box."

She laughed at that. "I have you in my head — not the other way around, cowboy. There's a Marie box." She was not wrong, but he didn't like being called on it.

He just growled at her. As much as he cared, he still didn't want her crawling through his personal thoughts.

"It's pretty damn outdated, though. And for a guy who was embarrassingly vocal about the whole 'women should be grown' thing, you got a lotta dirty thoughts about—"

"Enough!"

He shifted, no longer leaning against the tree, but standing freely in what was obviously a fighting stance. His fist was clenched. Jaw, too.

"You wanna go, sugar?" She pulled off her gloves. "I'm game if you are."

Shaking his head, he took a step back and then another, fighting the animal for control.

"I ain't lettin' you off the hook so easy. You think goin' a few rounds is gonna get you outta talkin'?"

"Whatever."

"Who knows. Maybe it's just an excuse to touch me in a way that don't scare the shit outta you." She growled. Actually growled at him at that. It would have turned him on if he wasn't so angry. "Hell, maybe you just like gettin' hit. Turn you on, baby?" He knew it did.

"Remind me again who said he liked pain?" she hissed.

"This ain't about me."

"Isn't everything?" she sneered.

"What the fuck?" He could feel the claws pricking the backs of his hands. Instead of grounding him, the pain only spurred him on. "You want this to be about you, then make it about you. Talk or get the hell away from me."

"You're an asshole." But she settled herself back on the log, just the same. It was so unexpected, he almost missed her next words. "It was a fall wedding. N'Orleans. We honeymooned in Paris, after. I ate snails!" She laughed softly at the memory, despite the emotionally charged conversation. "And I learned a lot of dirty words in French. We walked for miles, looking at art that's even older than you! And I had the best sex of my life." He realized, then, she hadn't backed down an inch. She meant for the words to hurt, and they did. But they were also clearly the truth.

Marie pulled her wallet from her pack and held out a worn wedding photo. Looking at it made his chest ache, but he still smiled. She'd worn boots with her wedding dress. And his cowboy hat. Her man was tall and lean with auburn hair and weird black and red eyes that made him uneasy.

"Nice," he managed to push out, handing the photo back to her.

"Yeah, I'm sure that's the first adjective that came to mind."

"Not the first," he agreed.

It wasn't the man in the photo that killed him. It was the smile on her, wide and carefree and bright enough to light up the world. Where had that girl gone?

"I don't get it," he said, finally.

"Don't get what?"

"That night on the dock. Our bet. No meaningful connection with anyone since you took the Cure? You paid up. Brought me a bottle."

"Yeah."

"So what gives? You sayin' you married that guy and there ain't somethin' meaningful there? 'Cause what's in that photograph says otherwise."

"Not everything's what it seems. That's just one moment in time."

"That don't make sense."

"Sure it does. It's like someone looking at you right now and going- Gee, he doesn't have any scars. He must not know the first thing about pain."

Logan sucked in a sharp breath. "Hey—"

"Look, I'm just saying some people are lying liars who lie and you can't make a life on that." She pushed herself to her feet. "And if you're stupid enough to try, then the whole house of cards comes crashing down."

"He did that?"

She didn't reply and didn't look at him. "It doesn't matter. It's done. Over. I'm just saying that as far as meaningful goes— when nothing's real, whatever life you thought you were making is gonna wind up in flames no matter what."

"That's what happened." It wasn't question.

She didn't answer.

She just walked away through the tall trunks, pale under her summer tan like she'd seen a ghost.

He followed from a distance, eventually melting away when he heard her void her stomach into the leaves. Only painful, visceral memories could do that. He knew.

As he walked away, he thought maybe she was still carrying the weight of those old ghosts with her even now.

He knew about that, too.

* * *

Up next: **Brand**. That's gonna leave a mark…


	20. Brand

Well, at least it's not as late as last week. Progress, hey? As for the story, thanks for being willing to take a ride on the Rogan (smut)express train to Cluetown. Population: two. Heh. In other news, for those of you who don't know, I recently (read: finally) took the plunge after putting it off for many moons. If you wanna come say hi/vent/toss bunnies in a different kinda venue, I'm thelachlanrose on tumblr. Also: it's a bigger time suck than I ever imagined. (And let's just say my imagination was pretty damn generous.) Onward!

* * *

Marie had invited him to meet at a crappy fight bar for drinks. Logan wasn't sure what that meant. Was it _just_ drinks? Was it some kind of olive branch? Things had been pretty tetchy between them since their walk in the woods and Marie's shocking revelation. Married and divorced all before the age of twenty-one— and she'd never once said a damn thing to him about any of it. What the fuck?

Logan didn't think it was an overt come-on, but Marie was unpredictable on a good day. Hell, maybe she was feeling the itch and just wanted to watch him get off. It had been awhile and she was fertile again, her scent climbing toward that luscious peak that made him crazy, but she wasn't quite there yet.

Three rounds in, he made the mistake of asking her what they were celebrating.

"It's my anniversary."

He choked on his beer. "Shit," he muttered, struggling to get a breath as he glared at her. "What the hell's wrong with you?"

"With _me_?" Her eyes flashed dangerously.

"Yeah, with you. Wantin' to celebrate that dick after what he did?"

"Is that what we're doing?"

"Ain't it?"

"Hey, nobody's makin' you stay."

"Mmph." Screw that. She wasn't going to drive him away that easily.

"Maybe I'm just mournin' the loss of something that was important to me. Did you ever think of that? You're the one who wanted to know 'the big things'."

Well, shit. She had him there.

"Not sure how it can be both a big thing and a thing that wasn't meaningful," his reply was surly and clipped. "Next time, get the firecracker to come with ya."

"What's the matter, cowboy? Am I coloring too far outside the lines again?"

"Fuck the lines. I don't wanna hear about Gumbo while you cry in your beer."

"Gumbo?" She arched a brow.

He just shrugged.

"Gambit," she offered when she realized he wasn't going to say more.

"Hell, anythin's better than _Remy_. What kinda pansy-ass name is that?"

"You're a ray of sunshine tonight, sugar."

"Nobody's makin' you stay, either."

"Well, forgive me for includin' the one person north of the Mason-Dixon Line who knows I was married." She stood up.

"Sit your ass down." She sat and he knew, then, she was really struggling and needed some company tonight. Otherwise she'd have stormed out no matter what he'd said. He ordered another round. Two Southern Comfort doubles and another pair of Molsons.

Marie swirled the strong, amber spirit in her glass. "Did you know this was invented in N'Orleans?"

"Jesus Christ. Enough already. Anythin' but that."

"Fine. How's this? I have a tattoo."

That he didn't expect. He hoped it wasn't something stupid. The world didn't need any more tramp stamps. Still, the thought of something intimate and meaningful marking that flawless canvas of creamy skin got his libido revving pretty good.

"Of what?"

Marie shook her head.

"You at least gonna tell me _where_?" Shoulder blade? Breast? Hip?

She deliberately misunderstood the question.

"Memphis."

"Chicken."

"Yeah, I'm shakin' in my boots over here, hoss."

Logan chuckled, head cocked, looking at her.

"What?"

"I just can't see it."

"Can't see what?"

"You doin' the whole picket fence thing."

"I thought we weren't talking about that?"

"That's you not him."

"Whatever." She rolled her eyes.

"Look, I'm just sayin' you spend your free time runnin' drills in the Danger Room and field strippin' your weapons and knife fightin' with the Tinman when you ain't doin' that Krav Maga shit in the gym. More the kinda person I picture filin' their teeth into points— not makin' pot roast in heels and pearls."

"Oh my God. You're a total Neanderthal." The words were light but he noticed she took a healthy sip of her drink. "It doesn't have to be one or the other, you know? And for your information, I'm a Southern girl, born and bred."

"Which means what, exactly?"

"That I'm fully capable of kicking your ass and making a pot roast."

"I didn't say you couldn't. Just that I can't picture it."

"Then that's on you."

"Maybe."

His flippant response seemed to have inadvertently struck a nerve.

"You think I can't make a home? Make a place where someone might feel safe and loved and like they matter?"

Shit. Her eyes were shining wetly even as they blazed fire at him. He was deep in the minefield now. No way out without getting blown to hell.

"Whoa. Back that truck up, sweetheart."

"So because I'm — I'm like this…" she waved a gloved hand at herself. "Damaged and broken," her voice cracked, "I'm only fit for fighting and not worthy of anything else?"

"What? Jesus. NO!"

"Hey, if we follow that logic then maybe all you're good for besides killin' is a hard, animalistic fuck."

He grunted, jerking as if she'd struck him.

"You gotta nasty mouth on ya."

She ignored him.

"What about _her_?" Marie's eyes slid over to a petite blonde across the room. She'd been trying to catch Logan's eye since they'd ordered their first beer. "She looks like she'd appreciate a good, hard roll in the hay."

"No."

"Why not?" She leaned in and the luscious scent of her, slippery and ripe and reeking of want, made the world go a little fuzzy around the edges. "You're hard."

He was, but only because he'd been thinking about her tattoo. Putting his mouth on it. Biting it. Coming on it. Licking it off. Stroking it and making her shiver. It was more than just that. The wildness in her was on the edge tonight. Challenging him. The animal had risen to her call and the musky, wanting scent of her wasn't helping him keep his shit together. He wasn't a god. He was just a man. One who fucked up as much as any other man. Probably more so, given the number of years he'd been up to bat.

"So?"

"So what's the big deal? It's just sex. It doesn't mean anything."

He wasn't sure who she was trying to convince.

"It means somethin' if you're watchin'."

He had zero interest in fucking a random cage bunny tonight but he was willing to do just about anything to get Marie to finally admit to this thing between them.

Her lips thinned into a line. She didn't move and she didn't reply.

"Fair enough, kid." He sat back slowly. The movement gave the appearance of lazy disinterest but his body was coiled with tension. He took a dismissive sip of his beer, like they hadn't just been dancing at the edge of the flames. When he reached for a cigar, she broke.

"Fine! Have it your way. It means something, okay?"

Ah, Christ. There went the Wolverine, tearing through every chain that bound him like tissue.

His black smile was wholly predatory.

"Watchin' me get you hot, darlin'?" He had never been so direct, but the animal had little patience for her hesitation.

Her eyes widened and he thought for a moment she might bolt, but Nature was a real bitch. She was at the mercy of her body too. Hormones and hardwired drives that were every bit as primal as his own. She might be afraid to touch, but she still _needed_ it _._ The Rogue did not miss the flash of gold in his eyes and he could tell she was responding to the wildness rising in him. They were both caught in something bigger than biology and chemistry. They had history, too.

"I said - does it get you hot?"

It was a dick thing to do to push her on a night she was already emotional, but he'd never been one to let the opportunity to gain an advantage pass him by. Surviving didn't come easy. It wasn't luck that had gotten him this far. Calculation and cunning and predatory instincts almost always overrode society's notions about what was right or proper.

Marie nodded.

"Say it," he rasped, leaning in.

The fire in her dark eyes grew hotter, with fury rather than arousal. She hated to be manipulated as much as he did. "It gets me hot." The words were an angry whisper.

"Say it again."

She finished her drink in one swallow and then put the glass down between them with the overly precise motions of a person about to lose their shit entirely. "Watching you get off gets me hot, okay? Christ! Makes me wet, too. Makes me come harder than I ever have in my life."

A fierce, low rumbling growl echoed in his chest at that unexpected revelation. Maybe he wasn't out of the running for the top spot on the ladder just yet.

"That good enough for you, cowboy? That what you wanna hear? Or maybe you need it written in blood, too?"

While he wasn't opposed to the idea of their blood mixing in any number of ways, he knew he could only push her so far. She'd given him more tonight than he ever dreamed.

And now he had to pay up.

~ooOoo~

They caught up with the blonde in a shadowy corner niche that seemed expressly designed for exactly the kind of encounter he had in mind.

"I'm Summer."

Logan was not impressed. The girl Marie had chosen seemed like any number of other attractive young women he'd known casually over the years— youth being the defining characteristic. Barely out of her teens and looking for validation from any man who'd make her feel pretty and wanted for a few minutes.

"Wolverine," he said, eyeing her in a way that conveyed his amorous intent.

"I know who you are." She tongued the neck of her beer lewdly in response, letting him know she'd gotten the unspoken message loud and clear. Logan put his hand on her hip, rubbing her stomach with his thumb possessively. Like most of the girls who came to places like this, she'd dressed to get a man's attention. Skirt that barely covered her ass. Midriff-baring top. Leather jacket over it all and stiletto heels so tall she almost looked him in the eye. Her skin was soft and warm and she smelled blandly of artificial vanilla and strongly of lemon vodka.

"This is Rogue." Logan gave Marie a nod. "She likes to watch."

"Whatever lights your fire, hun." Summer ran her hand up Logan's arm, feeling the steely ropes of muscle and tracing the vein up his bicep with her finger.

He understood it was a natural gesture. She wanted to confirm the strength of the man she'd chosen, but it still made him feel uncomfortably like a side of beef being inspected before consumption. Which given their respective desires, probably wasn't all that far from the mark.

"I'm not into girls, but if she's willing to share you, then I guess I don't mind too much if she watches." Her fingers trailed down his chest, circling the showy buckle before slipping lower to explore the hard cock below. "God! I hope you know how to use that!" she tittered. "But I guess you do, seeing as how your girlfriend here isn't limping and—"

Logan kissed her to shut her up.

A chatterbox. Fucking perfect. The blonde closed her eyes and he glared at Marie, whose body language said she was still furious with him. But now she was turned on too, whether in response to his own arousal or because she liked giving him orders, he wasn't sure.

"God! That's a five alarm stunner!" The blonde opened her eyes, breathless from his kiss. "What do you wanna see, hun?" She looked over at Marie expectantly.

The Rogue's eyes narrowed. That was against the rules. She never, _ever_ talked to the women.

She directed the curt reply to Logan. "Make her come. Right here. Use your hands."

"Mmm… I like her," the blonde bubbled, opening her legs to admit the thick wrist sliding confidently between her thighs. No panties and already slippery enough to take two fingers with little effort. She was smooth and hairless and _pierced_. Logan flicked at the little beaded ring and felt the first stirring of sexual arousal that wasn't directly inspired by the Rogue.

He liked the jewelry. And the blonde's responsiveness. A little curl of his fingers just _there_ and she yelped, gushing sweetly against his palm. _This_ he could do with little effort, and however wrong it was, it felt good to be able to bend something to his will when everything else was spinning wildly out of control.

Marie lounged against the wall, alternately watching his face and the play of muscles in his thick forearm as he worked. Logan moved his bulk nominally to shield the girl, but a few patrons eyed their shadowy corner as he crudely fingered the little blonde to a noisy orgasm.

Pinning the girl to the wall because her shaking legs wouldn't hold her, he looked over at Marie. "Ya want me to fuck her here, too?"

Her bluff called, Marie turned on her heel and stormed out.

Logan stopped only long enough to settle the shaky girl into a chair and order her another drink before he lit out after Marie.

~ooOoo~

Logan caught up with Marie beside his truck. She hadn't even finished climbing in.

He put his hand on the door, not even stopping to question why she'd gone straight to his truck and not her own ride. It was telling though, something he owned being her safe place to run to. He'd had the windows tinted recently, thinking of her intense need for privacy. "Slide over."

She did, grudgingly.

"Goddammit," he muttered under his breath as he settled into the seat. His erection throbbed uncomfortably, trapped beneath the restrictive denim.

"That wasn't nice."

"My dick hurts."

"I meant leaving that girl like that, you ass."

He shrugged.

"You're the one who said sex don't mean nothin'. Can't have it both ways, darlin'."

"And you're the one who made me say it _did._ "

"There ain't a man alive who can _make_ you do jackshit. You do what you want. Always have."

"What's the matter? That not _allowed_ , your highness? You don't own me! If blind obedience is what you want, go back in and finish fucking that little doormat." But there was a fine line between passion and anger and he could see that home fire was burning wildly out of control. She needed to come. Otherwise, she wouldn't have made a beeline for his truck.

"Not interested."

"Whatever." She shifted restlessly. Her response suggested she found his nearness both annoying and arousing. He shifted a little closer, moving his thighs apart as he adjusted himself absently. She bit her lip, breath catching when his thumb lingered, rubbing at that spot that got to him so good.

"Watchin' get you hot?" Her scent was stronger in the cab, thicker now that she was openly observing him try to massage his heavy erection into submission.

"Yes," she growled, breathing hard. Her fingers were clenched into fists. If she wet those full rosy lips one more time, he was going to lose his mind.

"I need t'come." Hard and loud— and if she was going to stay and watch— probably more than once. "You can still watch, darlin'. S'okay. I wantcha here."

"Not— not like this!"

He misunderstood.

"It ain't her. It ain't _any_ of them. It's you. You know that, right? Havin' you here is what does it for me." Maybe she needed to know it wasn't one sided. That she affected him powerfully, too. God. If she touched herself now, he was going to come in his pants. "Whatever you want, darlin'. Whatever you need." He reached for his buckle.

"NO!"

The sharp panic in her tone instantly killed his raging libido.

"Whoa. Easy, kid." He put his hands on the wheel, slowly and with great care. The last thing he wanted to do was scare her.

"Not like this," she repeated, looking miserable.

"Like what, then?"

"Not — not _alone_."

Logan immediately understood. It was too intimate for her to watch him by herself. She still needed the buffer of another person. Even now that she'd acknowledged this thing between them, she still needed to pretend.

And that made him wildly, irrationally angry. It had nothing to do with sex and everything to do with vulnerability. She was still holding back when he'd laid himself bare over and over again and allowed her to flay him raw.

Something in him snapped.

"You tellin' me you'd rather watch me fuckin' some stranger on this seat with you sittin' right there than watchin' me get off when it's just us?" His tone was incredulous. "After everythin'?"

She nodded.

"Get out."

"Because I turned you down? You're kicking me out?"

"It doesn't have a goddamn thing to do with sex."

"Right."

He lit a cigar because if he didn't have something to do with his hands, he was going to put his claws through the dash. He was deeply hurt that ugly thought had even crossed her mind. What they had wasn't conditional. Sure he wanted her to be honest with him and he resented her continued distance— but it didn't change how he felt about her.

He'd put himself between her and Sabretooth. Between her and Magneto. Between her and death, itself. How many times did he need to lay his life down for her to get that? They were both spiraling more and more out of control. Couldn't she see he was unraveling? Tonight, he'd had enough.

"Get OUT!" he roared.

Even then, there was a glimmer of hope that the Rogue would rise to that wild cry of the animal in pain. That she'd respond, even if it was in anger. That she'd meet him in that place as an equal.

Instead she left in silence, with round wet eyes and stinking of regret and sadness.

The Wolverine closed his eyes and put his head on the wheel, the taste of defeat bitter in his mouth.

* * *

Up next: **Flashover**. In which a single moment in time changes everything. Forever.

Feedback is love.


	21. Flashover

Woo hoo! A Thursday post on an actual Thursday. Hot diggity damn. I realize it's not going to be Thursday too much longer, but I'm pretty impressed with myself for getting this one up tonight. I was out with a girlfriend this evening after a long day. We rocked some fish and chips at an Irish pub. Glorious! In any case, I will have y'all know that I gave up some really good sleep for this! lol

Onward

(to bed)

Heh.

* * *

The battle with the Friends of Humanity was unexpectedly brutal and the aftermath even more so. Their remote mountain stronghold was still burning in the trees. The smoke hung thick and heavy between the rough trunks, scenting the air with bitter ash and the acrid stink of cordite and charred human flesh. To a man, they had chosen death over surrender.

The Wolverine was riled up, volatile and unstable, his hands wet with gore and his sensitive ears still ringing from the multiple explosions that had rocked the small valley all afternoon. Boobytraps. Suicide runs. Ordinance, small and large. The terrible pleading from the poor mutant souls imprisoned inside. The screams of the dead and dying.

At one point, the wind had shifted and through the smoke and he'd caught a brief glimpse of the Rogue. Even battered and bloody, she'd been intent on her opponent. Not looking for help. Not needing to be saved— just focused on the dirty job at hand. Simultaneously a tool for the cause and a burning sword of justice, delivered with grim satisfaction and a bloodthirsty light glinting fiercely in her eyes.

Logan's loss of situational awareness had cost him two body shots from a large caliber handgun at close range. Not even his enraged bellow of pain as he went on the offensive had distracted Rogue from her mission. He was glad, aware that her margin of error was much smaller than his own. The Wolverine smiled darkly as another FoH soldier bled out into the forest floor.

Eventually, the battle wound down. The silence between the sporadic pops of gunfire became longer and longer. The screams and shouts died to a whisper until the crackling of the flames was only broken by the low chatter on their coms as the teams checked in. 'Ro and Hank. Kitty and Bobby. Rogue and Pete. The Firecracker was stomping around like an elephant in the woods to his left. She was bitching under her breath as she tried to keep up with his punishing pace while he finished sweeping the surrounding terrain for any remaining hostiles.

When the Rogue appeared out of the smoke, panting, and pushing her face into the wind, he froze. Generally, Logan tried to stay the hell away from her in the aftermath of a battle. It made the Wolverine too unpredictable and the distance between bloodlust and carnal lust was a short one, even without Rogue's musky scent, thick with blood and sweat and victory pulling him deeper into that beautiful black morass.

She'd been fighting hand to hand. Her uniform jacket was missing, probably torn from her at some point during a violent struggle. She had leaf litter in her hair and her shirt was dirty and ripped. His long aggressive strides ate up the distance between them in moments. He knew better than to run his hands over her to assure himself she was whole and unharmed, but the urge was there, stronger than ever.

He took inventory with all his heightened senses instead, noting each oozing welt and bleeding scrape. Mud and blood and soot. Aware of what he was doing, her chin lifted defiantly but she didn't try to stop him. Perhaps some part of her understood it wasn't something either of them could control.

She was favoring her right ankle a bit, but otherwise seemed to be roughly in one piece. His gaze swung from the scratches on her neck to her torn shirt. Through the shredded material he saw something that made his breath catch. For a moment, it felt as if the world had stopped.

The faint tracing of silvery marks on her belly told him more in one brief glimpse than she had in months of heated conversation. The marks were faded, a pale iridescence that screamed the truth louder than any words.

She'd had a baby.

A _baby_.

As shattered as he was, he couldn't quite wrap his mind around the magnitude of that truth. Even the animal was bewildered, howling in confusion and pain from this new revelation.

Without thinking, he stepped closer in his shock and pushed the ragged edge of the shirt aside to expose them fully. His jaw clenched. There was no mistaking the truth. She had carried a child under her heart; her belly had swelled to accommodate new life.

And that had clearly left a mark, inside and out.

Marie recoiled instantly from his intrusive touch. Her body language screamed at him that she considered what he'd just done the deepest betrayal. A violation of everything they'd built between them in the seven years since she'd called out to him in that bar in Laughlin City.

He stood unmoving, stunned. Blinded by pain and rage. Years of shared history undermined by this terrible omission. A house of cards built on a lie, just like she'd said.

All this time. All of it. _Lies_. She'd let him bare his soul and in return, she'd fed him just enough crumbs to string him along. To get what she'd wanted out of him while never actually giving up her heart's most meaningful secrets.

Jerking her shirt together, she stumbled backwards, barely keeping her feet in her haste to get away from him. Logan stared in disbelief, wanting to follow as she vanished into the smoke, but the fear and revulsion in her eyes kept him rooted in place. Even the first time — when he'd been more animal than man and she'd been little more than a girl — even then, she hadn't looked on him with _fear_.

The world spun on, uncaring of his emotional turmoil. Night fell. Sparks popped and hissed from the dying fires, floating up into the sky with tails of orange light blazing behind them. Logan crouched in the shadows, head bent and shoulders hunched against the sharp wind.

His stomach roiled with the acid truth and the realization that Marie wasn't afraid of _him_ — she was afraid of being vulnerable. Afraid of him knowing the truth. Maybe she thought he wouldn't look at her the same way. She was right to think that. He did see her with new eyes. And new wounds, bleeding on the inside. Maybe she thought whatever lay between them wasn't strong enough to bear the weight of some truths without shattering under the strain.

Maybe she was right to think _that_ , too.

He can see why she would. There was a trail of wreckage behind her, starting with that first boy she kissed. Then Erik. Charles. Her father. Bobby. LeBeau. Him. People she loved and lost. People who hurt her. Violated her. People she counted on who let her down. People who abandoned her when she most needed their strength.

He got it.

But it wasn't a free pass.

There was no welshing on a deal made with the Wolverine.

Her pointed absence said she knew it, too.

 **~ooOoo~**

This time, Logan didn't let her run after they arrived back at the Mansion.

He wasn't in the mood to indulge her need for space. He wanted answers; and failing that— a confrontation. Some sort of violent physical catharsis before that putrid wound festering between them poisoned them both beyond their ability to recover. He could feel the insidious taint of it even now, bitterness and doubt clouding his thoughts. Pulling him, prodding him to close himself off. To rip and tear and _slash_. She wasn't the only one who felt betrayed.

They weren't even out of the lower levels before he'd cornered her in an empty hallway. "Hey." It came out hard. He was angry and hurt and both showed on his normally stoic face.

"What?" she snapped, turning sharply on her heel. Her body language said she was expecting a fight. Instead of leaning against the wall, she'd kept the open corridor to her back. An easy avenue of escape, if she needed it.

She fucking well might.

"You know _what_ ," he growled, feeling the sharp stick of metal pushing between his knuckles.

Her eyes were on the tips of gleaming adamantium protruding from his fist. She took a step closer and pulled off her gloves. "Go fuck yourself."

"You'd like that, huh? As long as someone else is there so you can keep on pretendin' it ain't about you." The truth, delivered with his special brand of brutality. His gaze flicked from the gloves on the floor to her face, twisted with savage expectation. She was ready to fight. He wanted her to bleed, but not like _that_. It sharpened his ire. "But what's another lie at this point, right, honey?"

 _Honey_. It wasn't a deliberate choice, but marked the change between them all the same. Distance that hadn't ever been there before. The others were always honey. Never her.

"You've got some balls to say that to me when you've been running from the truth since we met." True, but it wasn't _that_ truth he was interested in right now.

"Bullshit. I walked away from an adolescent girl throwing herself at a man who fuckin' knew better than to stick around to see how that'd turn out." Her chest heaved in anger and his eyes were drawn to her ruined shirt and the tracing of faint lines beneath. A _baby_. He couldn't escape any of the questions that knowledge forced on him. "I guess we both know how _that_ turned out now."

"I am NOT having this conversation _here_ ," she hissed. Her dark gaze flickered worriedly down the hall. As if anyone would have been stupid enough to follow the Wolverine in that mood, or to eavesdrop on either of them when their blood was up.

"You say that like ya had some intention of _ever_ havin' that conversation."

"You have no right to judge me. I never promised you a damn thing."

It was an unfortunate choice of words that dredged up a poignant moment from their shared past. The contrast between that moment and this one hardened his heart— an automatic response to stem the bleeding. "How many meaningful connections you gonna piss away, Marie?"

Her naked fingers twitched in warning.

He saw the flicker of movement and read the intent on her face. The flash of gold died in his eyes and his bearing changed as he came to an internal decision. A fork in the road. His head dropped. He could leave. Give them both a chance to cool down. It would be the kindest choice, but he was never one for taking the easy path.

"Do it," he rasped, abandoning his defensive stance and opening his arms in invitation.

It wasn't submission. It was a dare. A bluff called. A hail Mary. A lifetime of secrets offered on the altar of touch. And the ugly truth was that it was easy to make those seemingly reckless gestures with his heart and his body when experience told him that she'd probably never be able to open herself up that way again. It allowed him to salvage his battered pride and to put her on the defensive.

Her eyes widened with surprise and hurt and then narrowed with suspicion. She knew him too well. The Wolverine didn't roll over, and he sure as hell didn't back down. Especially when he had his prey on the run.

"Look," she said sharply, taking a step back. "I'll be at Jack's later tonight. When you've gotten your head out of your ass, come find me." She was sure and strong— and _mad_ , and that was his bluff called, too.

Well, fuck.

* * *

Up next: **Incinerate**. Y'all know what's coming. It's pure physics. For every action, there's an equal — and opposite — reaction.

Shit's about to get real.


	22. Incinerate

Logan scanned the crowded room, from the bar to the cage to the tables just outside the ring of wan light. For a moment he thought Marie had stood him up, but then he found her, slouching at a table on the edge of the room. She had a beer dangling from her fingers and she was watching the fighters in the cage rather than the door.

Typical.

Drink in hand, he made his way through the rowdy crush of bodies and sat down next to her, already irritated by her lack of acknowledgement and by her appearance. He preferred her bare-faced with fresh, dewy skin and full pink lips that looked like they'd just been kissed. He was not a fan of the heavy smoky eyes and pale lips that made her appear both older and harder. He didn't like thinking about her like that. Jaded. Guarded. The set of her mouth was sultry, sliding towards cruel.

Distance in her eyes. Jeans that looked painted on. A corset the color of bruised plums trussing up enough creamy white cleavage to sufficiently distract him from her face. Her favorite black leather jacket with the wings stitched on the back. _Death from above_ , he thought uncharitably. Boots made for fighting, though, rather than towering fuck-me heels. That brought a ghost of a smile to his mouth. You could take the girl out of the fight…

His eyes trailed back up. Toned thighs. Slim hips. Flat belly, tight as a drum. Looking at her, you'd never know she'd had a child. A baby. _Her_ baby. _Her baby with another man._ He couldn't seem to think about anything else, and the knowledge that her svelte body carried that faint tracing of silvery lines under her clothes tormented him. Raised questions that burned like acid. Where—

"You done?" she drawled, interrupting his thoughts. The warning was clear. She did not appreciate his frank, intimate assessment of her body and the questions flickering in his eyes.

Too fucking bad for her. "Mmph."

Even the grunt sounded like an accusation. It felt like one, too. How _dare_ she keep something like that to herself? After everything? After the train and the torch and the tags and the shuddering orgasms and the brutally honest conversations that followed? It made him irrationally angry.

"Did the baby live?" The words fell like a blow. Sharp and hard and more direct than he'd been since he wrapped her fingers around his tags a lifetime ago.

"Jesus, Logan!" she spat. "That's a hell of an opener." She looked away and drained a good third of her beer.

"What? You think I came here to talk about the fuckin' weather?" He wasn't the sort of man who made small talk on a good day, much less when he was hanging onto the remaining shreds of his humanity with white-knuckled fingers.

God damn the demons that couldn't be slayed with adamantium and volcanic, crimson rage.

The animal was howling and thrashing, demanding an explanation. Where was her young? His need for an answer was incendiary, obliterating everything else. Privacy. Propriety. _Decency._

"Of course not. You want what you want and screw everyone else, right? We both know what an asshole you can be, so don't expect me not to call you on your shit."

He shrugged. She was not wrong. "Answer the fuckin' question. You got a baby out there somewhere?" Had she abandoned it? He couldn't keep the censure from his voice and didn't even try.

She bristled at that, eyes swinging back to pin him in the chair. It creaked under his weight as he shifted uncomfortably.

"What in the hell makes you think you have the right to know?"

"It's a part of you." He'd given her the spark that was glowing brightly in her eyes, even now. Denying him an answer was like denying their past, denying what he did. What he gave her. The spark of life awakening a body that was limp and dead in his arms. Calling her back from that other place to walk in _this_ world once more.

"That's fucking hypocritical. You've fucked two women without condoms in the last few months, and how many more before that? How many parts of _you_ are runnin' around out there?"

"That's different," he countered, aware of how it sounded. But it was also the truth. Historically. Biologically. That was Mother Nature's rule, not his. "S'Nature, honey. You can bitch all you want, but it don't change how things are."

She snorted and slammed her beer down with enough force that it sloshed up and wet her glove. "Big dumb animal spreadin' his seed, but the bitch should stay home with her cub? Fuck you!"

His expression implied that 'bitch' was the most accurate word she could have chosen. He gave her a hard look, feeling like this was it. There was no backing down now. This time it wasa bloody fight to the end. No giving up. No running away. "You had a baby, kid. You can't just pretend like it didn't happen."

"No. YOU can't pretend like it didn't happen. That's what this is really about." The honey in her drawl was more like flaming tar than sweet molasses. He felt scalded. A searing brand that would never heal. And never be forgotten. "What's wrong, sugar? It doesn't fit in the Marie box? Don't like the way you have to think of me now that you know?"

"That's bullshit."

She charged on, talking over him. "Or is it just too hard for you to imagine fucking me with a belly between us? The idea of me as a mama is the ultimate cockblock, huh? Maybe the thought of that kind of commitment is too much for the king of one-night-stands. Or maybe you can't just can't let go of the past? You want the girl with stars in her eyes and not the _woman_ who's seen into your head and brought a child into this world."

"None of that matters," he growled.

"Now _that's_ bullshit."

"Not my problem."

"Prove it," she snapped.

Somehow, he knew she didn't mean swearing on a stack of bibles. "Whatcha want? Cross my heart and hope to die? Sworn in blood? _Seppuku_?"

She ignored him, casting her eyes over the room. "No. I wantcha to fuck _her_." He followed her gaze, jaw clenching as she focused on a pretty brunette with a small baby bump discreetly concealed under her apron. She was clearing glasses, tendrils of her hair falling around her face and full breasts pressing against her shirt as she bent to wipe the table. She looked a little tired, but she had that glow, a light from within.

As if she felt Logan's gaze, she looked up and smiled at him, first with surprise to have caught the attention of such a man, and then with warm invitation.

Beside him, he felt Marie stiffen in anger at the brunette's response to his attention. A clear example of Mother Nature's rules in action; the very system Marie was railing against used to his advantage to prove her wrong.

" _Her_ ," she repeated, just to turn the screws.

"No."

He drained his beer without tasting it.

"Yes. You said it doesn't matter, so prove it, hoss. Put your money where your mouth is."

"Or you're done playin' this game?" Because he wasn't sure if it was worth it anymore.

"Or I never tell you another word about my _daughter_."

He sucked in a sharp breath, aware her use of that word was deliberate. A glimmer of what she might reveal, if he played her game.

Christ, a daughter. Marie's little girl. A thousand pictures flashed through his mind and his heart seemed to seize in his chest.

Logan closed his eyes, resigned to the knowledge that he was going to give in to her demand because he knew she was damn stubborn. She meant what she said. She'd go to her grave with every last secret and he'd live forever, desperate for answers that had died with her.

" _Fine_."

His hand curled into a fist at her smug reaction; the flush of victory on her cheeks and sparkling in her eyes. He couldn't tell if she was hoping he'd fail or hoping he'd prove her wrong.

She was giving him a chance, though, and that seemed significant, even if it had come in the form of an ultimatum rather than a request. She also seemed to have pretty unrealistic expectations in regards to his prowess with women. Sure, he got more than his share, but it wasn't as simple as picking one out of the crowd. At least, not all the time.

Marie appeared to be unaware her hand had trailed from her collarbone to cup a breast absently before it fell to her lap. "She'll be sensitive," she murmured. Her eyes were still on the brunette, but she was lost somewhere in the past, he thought with a frown. "Make it good for her."

"For her or _you_?"

"Does it matter? You get what you want, either way."

"Honey, you know jackshit about what I want." And even less about how he felt, but he was a survivor and this was hardly the first time he'd used his body to get what he wanted. Typically it took the form of a paycheck earned in the cage, but not always.

"Whose fault is that?" she accused.

He was not having _that_ conversation now. He was not about to let her derail the train when he was so close to getting the answers he wanted.

"What about what _she_ wants?"

"Convince her."

"And if she says no?"

Marie was watching the girl watch him.

"She won't."

* * *

Up next: **Scald**. There is no way this one is gonna go down without some serious collateral damage. Things are about to reach critical mass and go nuclear.

Also, the 'X' key is dying on my laptop. (read: I have to press the stingy bastard a bazillionty times to get it work some nights) How's that for irony? Overuse, I wonder? ;) Maybe it's just a sign from the universe saying it's time to upgrade/update the hardware. Ugh. I hate all that tech shit. I'd rather be writing (smut). Though I am rather amused by the idea of a new little virgin laptop out there somewhere that's about to be oh, so thoroughly defiled. Heh. Onward!


	23. Scald

Author's note: Sorry for the late chapter! It's spring and you know what that means… well, specifically in _my_ world it means a small window of time where I bust ass to put in gardens before the scorched earth (also known summer in Texas) rolls on in. I'm what you'd call a lazy gardener - ie, if I plant it, I want to be able to eat it. To that end, I had a load of dirt delivered to my house that was literally twice the size of my vehicle. It's been a dirty, dirty weekend. And not in the good kinda way. Heh. I rewarded myself with my first ever pair of real cowboy boots. Bourbon colored leather, naturally. Onward!

* * *

It was easier than Logan expected. The girl was wilder than she looked and freer than he thought she should be with her body, considering her condition, but it didn't stop him from following her out back on her break.

Beyond the solid brick enclosure around the dumpster was a small private space swept clean of debris and lit with an old yellow floodlight. A tallish stack of pallets with a canvas tarp thrown over them formed a rough seat and there was a can beside them with a few stale cigarette butts. The soft thrum of industrial machinery drowned out most of the crowd cheering on the fights inside, and a grate beneath their feet vented enough hot air that it chased the autumn chill from the small space. An oasis, of sorts. Crude, but private.

Marie watched from the shadows.

The brunette wrapped her arms around him, holding him tightly against her small frame. He had the sense it was because she was soaking in his strength rather than because she was shy or hesitant. His hunch turned out to be right. Her hand slid down his chest to cup the swell of flesh under his buckle with an appreciative murmur. It was impressive, even without a full rush of blood.

The touch was prurient, but lacked the tinge of desperate lust that usually colored these sorts of encounters. She hadn't come to the bar for a good time. She'd come for a paycheck. He was a pleasant distraction, at best. A welcome one, though, it seemed. The warm rising musk of feminine arousal and the press of a supple body was an unmistakable invitation.

Nature again. Surging hormones and the cradle of life flush with blood, sensitive and engorged. Aching. A time to bond with her mate. Bring her man close to ensure he would be there to watch over her and her vulnerable young… but without a mate, that inner drive was expressing itself differently tonight.

Logan was willing to accommodate her, however it required more care than he generally used. The awareness that she was not alone in her skin hovered at the edge of his thoughts, mixing with the turbulent swirl of anger and the hot tide of raw lust. Nature pulled at him too, a strange unwelcome urge to protect the small fragile life and the young mother nurturing it. It seemed both contradictory to - and yet also somehow strangely compatible with - his more base, carnal response.

The Rogue made an impatient noise in her throat.

Soft though it was, it fractured the fragile threads holding together the last of his strained patience. Like a volatile chemical reaction, it was the drop that crystallized the rest, shattering the night around him in a shower of heat and sparks. The scrape of a boot. The dull roar from inside the bar. The hum of cars on a nearby highway. Blood pounding. Breath, hot in his ear. And rage. Rage so incandescent it burned away everything else. He fucking would see that fierce creature humbled.

Lifting his mouth from the girl's flushed skin, he spoke. Soft words, carefully chosen for maximum damage. "What do you want, honey?"

Behind him, he felt their impact on Marie. A step back and then another. The rustle of leather. Her arms crossed, in anger, he hoped. Asking the girls what they wanted was not a part of this game. And as usual, he felt more attuned to the woman in the shadows than the one in his arms. That knowledge only pushed him closer to the edge.

"Your mouth," she breathed, tracing the rough stubble on his jaw and chin with a fingertip, her eyes shining with anticipation.

Christ. Her response couldn't have been better. Or more painful. The perfect storm of openly raunchy and acutely uncomfortable. In all the times Marie had watched, he'd never done that. Usually it was their mouth on _him_. A warmup for what the Rogue really wanted. She liked watching penetration, with fingers or a cock, but not like _this_. Maybe it was too revealing a request to make or too intimate an act to watch. Hell, maybe she just didn't like seeing the Wolverine on his knees before anyone else. Who knew?

"Where?" He thumbed a distended nipple, and felt the shudder run through her.

She caught his hand and pressed it between her legs. "Here." The soft thin skirt provided little in the way of a barrier. It was bunched between them in moments, panties brushed impatiently aside; his fingers sliding easily in the slick welcome with her hand wrapped around his wrist.

He immediately understood the appeal. Swollen and sensitive as she was, the stimulation of his mouth would be overwhelmingly intense. Soft insistent lips. The wet flick of his strong tongue. The warm suction of his mouth. The rasp of the rough stubble on his chin and the tickle of the longer hair along his jaw.

Turning his his head, he caught Marie glancing back down the alley. He pinned her with a stare. No fucking _way_ was he going to let her run now. She'd demanded this and he was going to make her pay. Give her what she'd asked for but nothing she wanted. Make her watch every last uncomfortable minute.

It was crude and base. The Wolverine was much too close, roused by instinct and scent and a fierce violent longing to put the Rogue in her place. How dare she demand _this_ in exchange for the answers he craved? He feasted. Lewdly. Openly animalistic in his enjoyment of the girl's waton response and Marie's silent outrage.

The scent. The taste. The quiver in the girl's thighs as they clenched and squeezed. Anger bled into arousal and he grew harder. His objection was moral rather than physical and he wasn't even sure he could do what Marie wanted until he felt the girl's hands pull tight in his hair as she took control and rode his mouth to a tremendous orgasm.

He could feel the fury bleeding from Marie, a snarl of savage emotions barely contained as he pulled the girl to her feet and moved in behind her, his intent clear. Her legs were shaking and she was flushed and sweating, her hands braced on the bricks and her fingers spread wide. She was watching him over her shoulder, still shaking with aftershocks and half-wild. Panting and uncoordinated, her limbs heavy were slow to respond, even as she spread her legs to accommodate him.

Hauling the thick cock from his pants with little ceremony, he rubbed it against her, crudely stimulating them both, but as he moved to push inside, he saw she'd dropped one hand from the wall to curl around the soft swell of her belly. It was an unconscious, _protective_ , gesture; cradling her child as a strange male moved in close, crackling with energy barely leashed.

Her response had been instinctive. She'd wanted him. She wanted him _still_. His face and cock were shining wetly, and yet even in that moment of post-orgasm bliss, her first thought was for her child. Abruptly he realized that his hand was on her belly. That he'd seen the soft naked swell and couldn't help himself. He'd put his hand on it and thought of Marie, pregnant.

Logan froze, suddenly acutely uncomfortable and painfully aware of the weight of Marie's stare as he staggered back and fumbled with his jeans and belt. Both women were gazing at him in disbelief; a shocked sort of horror that was strangely similar despite being driven by two very different emotions. He didn't say anything to either woman.

He just wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, shook his head and walked away.

~ooOoo~

Marie caught up with Logan at the back edge of the parking lot where the uneven ground gave way to tall trees.

"Coward," she sneered. His long strides stopped abruptly. Gravel crunched under his his boot as he turned.

A low growl of warning rumbled in his chest.

The Rogue laughed. "I totally called your bluff. I guess I win."

"Do you?"

Her cruel smile faded. "Of course. You ran, so I don't owe you any dadgum answers."

"Bullshit." His tone implied he thought she probably wouldn't have given him any real answers anyway. Her eyes narrowed at the insult. "You said fuck her. I did. Now talk."

"You didn't fuck her. You ran away in a streak of yella with your tail between your legs."

"Say that again, and you and me are gonna go, right here. Right now." Considering his gift and hers, it would — ironically — probably be a far better fight than anything they'd seen in the cage tonight.

"I'm shakin' in my boots, sugar." She was clearly spoiling for a fight.

"Go fuck yourself." He turned, almost wrenching the handle off the door of his truck as he flung it open and climbed in.

To his surprise, Marie climbed in the passenger seat. Jesus Christ. He should have known. Girl never could resist a fight. The bloodier, the better.

"I _knew_ you couldn't do it," she spat.

That just made him madder. He'd run, he'd give her that. But he'd also fucked that girl. "Hey, I fucked her, honey. Just not with _this_." He cupped his crotch crudely, licking his lips to send the point home with the maximum amount of collateral damage possible.

Marie rolled her eyes but her fists were clenched. "Oh, please! You know what I meant."

He made a dismissive noise in his throat. "Talk."

"No way. I don't owe you a damn thing. You totally choked." She crossed her arms, glaring at him. "I _thought_ you wanted answers. I _thought_ you wanted to hear about my baby."

"Not at the expense of someone else's," he growled, on the verge of true violence. His eyes flashed gold and it was all he could do to pull a few rough words from the animal's maw. "I couldn't…" Not even for her. Not even for the answers he wanted.

He didn't apologize. He didn't even look at her. He wasn't sorry. He was furious. Angry with her for putting him in that position. Angry at himself for not being able to follow through, despite what was at stake. Sick at what he'd done. Sicker still that parts of him had enjoyed it. And above all, the terrible realization that it hadn't really been about that girl at all. It was that he couldn't touch her and not picture Marie with her belly lush and rounded with new life.

It was a circular sort of thinking that wound back around to where it began. Where the fuck was her baby?

"You didn't play by the rules."

Did he ever? "Start talkin' or get the fuck out."

"No." She turned to face him. "The spirit of the law and the letter of the law are two different things." The Wolverine bristled at the idea of any law but his own. "We disagree, so we'll just call this one a draw." Her eyes were drawn away to follow one of the cage bunnies as she moved across the lot towards a shitty turquoise Chevelle. "Since you noped out before, how about another chance? Do _her_ and I'll talk."

Logan was momentarily struck mute by the Rogue's sheer audacity.

"Well," she prompted when he didn't respond.

"Christ. What the hell are you after, kid?" For fuck's sake, his dick was still wet from before. Face, too.

"What do you think?"

"No," he snarled.

"Last chance, sugar." Marie's eyes followed the girl as she made her way slowly across the gravel lot, swaying a little, and moving her hips to a song that only she could hear. "Tick-tock."

For one terrifying moment, he thought he would kill her. The black rage rose, swelling and churning until he couldn't breathe, or see, or think. Until he had to give in or tap out. He reached for that place where the fury clicked off and everything became mechanical, devoid of feeling altogether. He'd been a soldier for two centuries. The familiar cold calculation settled over him like an icy blanket and everything was suddenly crystalline clear and bright.

He wiped his mouth and jaw, got out of the truck and caught up with the girl easily. Focused, with a specific goal in mind.

Marie was going to pay.

"What's the matter, _darlin_ '?" An endearment chosen specifically to wound. "Leavin' early? Pretty girl like you shouldn't be goin' home alone." His jaw clenched. Under the whiskey and perfume, she smelled of smoke and sex and the reek of another man's musk.

Despite that, it didn't take much effort to get what he wanted. She knew who he was and had seen him in the cage. Not the usual sort of fight groupie, this one. She had violet and indigo hair, ear gauges, Docs instead of the usual fuck-me boots, and a tattoo of the Xenomorph queen from Alien on her neck. The piercings in her lip and eyebrow glinted in the moonlight.

She was also stunning. Flawless skin. Lithe and strong with breasts perky enough that she didn't need a bra and a tank sheer enough to emphasize that fact. In contrast, her soft floaty black skirt was startlingly feminine. A black leather trench with the collar turned up against the cold wind completed the strange ensemble. He thought she looked less like a cage bunny and more like a human who wished she was a mutant.

None of it mattered. It took only a handful of minutes and even fewer words before he was leading her back to his truck. Marie had locked the doors, but that didn't even slow him down. He hadn't intended to fuck the girl inside it anyway.

Screw the Rogue and her rules. He deliberately defied them all. He hadn't told the girl about Marie and now she'd have a goddamn front row seat. Even if she closed her eyes, she couldn't escape. A black smile pulled at his mouth. She'd feel the rocking of the truck and hear his grunts and the girl's moans whether she wanted to or not.

Pushing the girl's back up against the driver's side door, he went right after it. The girl licked at his jaw while he pushed up her top and pinched her nipple sharply, figuring a girl with that many piercings probably wouldn't mind the pain. He was right. Her tongue skated wetly over his skin. She was remarkably sanguine about the fact that she clearly wasn't the first woman he'd been with tonight. Maybe because she had no moral high ground to claim there.

He didn't use a condom, either. Just heaved the girl up and shoved in hard. He didn't even care how sore she would be as long as _Marie_ felt it. The truck rocked. The girl moaned and ground against him, still obviously sensitive from before and he was suddenly aroused by the idea of fucking one woman while wet with another. Better yet was knowing that Marie couldn't escape any of it.

She was right on the other side of the glass. Listening to every filthy word. Hearing every dirty grunt and the rhythmic clink of the girl's studded leather choker smacking against the window.

He fucked harder, rocking them all, hoping Marie felt every thrust into the girl's body like a wound to her own heart. He deliberately met Marie's eyes through the tinted glass, baring his teeth in defiance. She looked every bit as devastated as he had hoped. For a moment he enjoyed her terror, feeling like some kind of god, drunk on lust and revenge and drowning in the scent of pussy and the feel of his own power.

Suddenly, the clouds shifted and the moonlight on the glass reflected his own savage face back at him. It was twisted and cruel and he was unexpectedly, painfully, aware of how out of control it all had become. He froze, his focus sliding back to the girl in his arms, realizing her body had turned rigid, her scent starting to turn acrid with fear. He had no idea how long she had been that way.

He pulled out abruptly, registering the girl's wince as he backed away in revulsion, shaken and reeling.

When had it become _this_?

He barely registered as the girl looked at his rapidly wilting cock with a snort of disdain, smoothed down her skirt and went to her car without a backwards glance. Tucking himself away with a grunt, he braced himself for what was coming. Even unable to meet her eyes, he could feel the weight of Marie's stare through the smoky glass.

Without warning, the truck's engine roared to life. Gravel flew as the tires spun and caught. The bed fishtailed, brake lights bleeding in the dark as Marie peeled out and left him standing there, shocked and ashamed.

And pissed, too.

Girl had taken his ride.

An echo of an old memory washed through him. Driving away from her, leaving a desperate kid alone on a snowy road in the middle of fucking nowhere. He was under no illusions that she'd stop the truck and let him catch up. Not now.

Maybe not ever.

* * *

Up next: **Slag**. The aftermath of the nuclear blast. Barren. Bitter. Desolate...

Buckle up, folks. The ride's fixin' to get rough.

Also, I'm going to do my best to get the next chapter up on Thursday because next weekend is big-ass-dirt-pile, round two. (Hmm.. what color boots should I buy next time?) ;)


	24. Slag

Sorry, y'all. I didn't post because [reasons]. My life is beyond ridiculous right now. If it helps, I'm giving up sleep to get this one up tonight and I intend to still keep up with the (ahem) regular (semi-regular?) Thursday posting. I have to say it helps that Friday is a day off. Heh. Onward! (to tea and bed) Zzzz...

* * *

The feral howl of murderous rage hushed the crowd as a third man fell bloody and unconscious at the Wolverine's feet. His opponent's face was almost unrecognizable, a pulpy crush of tissue and bone. The cage floor was slick with blood. Streaks and smears covered the Wolverine's hands and splattered his face, thick enough to obscure the scent of pussy, finally. But the acrid reek of shame was still hot and sharp in his nose.

 _Bad._

Bad. It was bad to do this here.

It took a little while for the reason to rise though the violent waves of fury crashing through his blood and clouding his mind.

Too close to the school. Too visible for a man who taught history to children. For fuck's sake. He was no teacher. He was this. _This_. An animal. His true form revealed with each punch, each spurt of blood and cry of agony. And worse than that realization, was the knowledge that he liked it. It felt… _good_. Blood and pain and a beautiful, freeing blackness.

The announcer, thick and solid with silver at his temples and a voice like rusty nails tried to stop him.

The Wolverine put him down, too. Brutally. Efficiently.

The crack of a leg and a raspy scream that abruptly stopped as the man crumpled under a powerfully delivered blow. A bloody puppet with strings severed by adamantium and blinding rage.

It didn't help. There was no satisfaction to be found here.

And no peace.

He shouldn't have done it but he couldn't be bothered to care. What did it matter if he burned a bridge when the whole world was flaming down around him?

~ooOoo~

The forest welcomed his slow retreat from the bar. This morning he'd been standing on the battlefield, covered in gore and staring at the marks on Marie's belly. Their fight afterwards had left him feeling as bloody as the eviscerated corpses he had left behind. Tonight she'd goaded him into fucking two different women in less time than it usually took to kill a beer. A part of him had liked that, too, but the urge to claim and conquer and fuck was gone, consumed by the shocking violence he'd just expended in the cage.

As the bloodlust cooled along with the sweat and salt on his skin, he sank to the damp ground in a weary heap, his back against a thick trunk, arms resting on his knees.

Logic and reason returned by slow degrees. He wasn't sure when this thing with Marie had become more about punishing her than giving her… something. When had it changed, from letting Marie reveal herself to stripping away her defenses? Was the animal inside him just so greedy, so voracious, that he couldn't let her set the pace — driven to hunt her to ground, and take what he wanted. That's what she had looked like at the end. _Prey._

It seemed to hit him all at once that they'd wound up in a very different place than he ever imagined or intended.

Shit. How the fuck had they gotten _here_?

When had their playful growling jabs and enthusiastic roughhousing become a full-on battle for dominance? A bloody brawl with snapping teeth and slashing claws that could only end with the arterial spray of a severed jugular. Clearly, both of them were too fucking stubborn to back down and submit.

They also seemed incapable of having a real conversation that wasn't immediately preceded by sex or violence, or both. Logan grimaced, his face sinking into his hands, surprised to find his eyes wet. He was still shell-shocked by the revelation that she'd a had a baby. A daughter. A child made in love with another man.

A dream he was too terrified to even acknowledge had died in his breast at that knowledge, leaving a cold darkness that was slowly consuming him. Wind creaked through the swaying trees like a mother hushing a fretful child in her arms. The world blurred before his eyes and his fingers sunk deep into the rich soil.

The problem with burning down the world was that it left behind only smoke and ashes.

~ooOoo~

By the time Logan made it back to the school, he was shaking with post-adrenaline fatigue. He was emotionally drained, a fragile husk, emptiness and despair shrouded in shiny adamantium.

He didn't speak. Or trash his room. Or light a cigar. He sat in numbed silence rather than quiet contemplation, frozen in place until the shadows creeping across the floor grew long. The sun set. He moved then, a bottle finding its way to his hand. He had no memory of how, but his desperate grip on it eased as the amber spirit inside filled his empty belly. It brought a bit of warmth and briefly muted his body's need for food.

He brooded as the shadows deepened. Thinking about leaving. Thinking about cutting all ties with the Mansion and with Marie. He had all but convinced himself it was for the best. It was time. He should go.

He was not a man much given to sentiment, but he took a beer down to the dock. One last drink by the water. In the last few years, he'd probably spent more time on that old dock than anywhere else. It didn't quite feel like home, but it was comfortable, and sitting there under the stars was as close to peace as he'd come in all the years he could remember.

He wanted the balm of stars and fireflies, but of course it was cold and damp, the stars and moon well shrouded. The clouds hung heavy and low and a thin fog was beginning to roll in off the lake. Everywhere the scent of rain and the sound of dripping moisture. It made him feel wet and chilled, even though he was dry under layers of leather and denim and flannel.

His mind swirled uneasily, but his heavy body was still, absorbing the motion of the dock as it rocked gently beneath him. It was impossible not to think of Marie and all the times they'd talked here. He was too full of regret and unanswered questions to let in much else, but an echo of an old conversation suddenly rose up. Their bet and the bottle she'd brought along with a painful revelation. And his own words came back to haunt him.

 _How many meaningful connections you gonna piss away?_

On its heels came the realization that he was doing it, too. Ready to cut ties and run when things got rocky. By the time he'd switched back from beer to bourbon, he'd made the conscious decision to find her. Not to chase her, but to get some resolution. They needed to stop cutting each other to shreds. Even if it meant never seeing her again, it couldn't end like this.

And if he was honest, he couldn't stand the thought that her last memory of him might be his enjoyment of her pain during a rough sex act. Selfish as it was, he couldn't spend eternity walking this earth knowing that's how she'd remember him.

~ooOoo~

Logan knew it wouldn't be difficult to find her. That had never been the problem. His truck had a GPS tracker. All vehicles belonging to the senior staff were equipped with one. Storm had insisted, and now he was glad he'd lost that particular battle.

It took little effort to locate the truck. A few numbers tapped into the app on his phone and there she was. She'd passed Philadelphia and Baltimore and had stopped just outside of Richmond. Another memory surfaced like an old ghost. She'd mentioned Greensboro to him once. _Indiana or North Carolina?_ , he'd asked.

Now he knew.

From New York to Richmond… if he drew a line from Richmond to New Orleans, Greensboro was on the way.

Shit.

Charlotte. Atlanta. Montgomery. Meridian. Slidell. New Orleans.

Was she running to that Cajun motherfucker? Is that where she went?

It didn't make sense, but nothing with Marie was ever easy and he wondered just how truthful she'd been. A life built on a house of cards, she'd said. Then or now? Who the fuck even knew what that meant, anyway? Maybe she'd never really given the Cajun up or gotten over him.

The truck hadn't moved in hours. For a while, he thought maybe she'd abandoned it. She knew how to hide if she wanted to. She had him in her head — and even if she didn't, one of the first things One-Eye had done was teach her how to hotwire a car. She knew how to get a clean vehicle. If she really wanted to hide, she wouldn't drive his truck the whole way. He couldn't tell if she kept using it to give him the finger or because she just didn't care. He tried not to think about the third option; that maybe some small part of her was hoping he'd follow.

A day of hard driving would put her in New Orleans. It seemed like she wasn't in much of a hurry to get anywhere except away from him. She was probably holed up somewhere, licking her wounds.

He knew a bit about that, too.

~ooOoo~

Once he had decided to go after her, it didn't take long to pack his shit. There wasn't much of it, even now. He passed on his bike, thinking only of functionality. It was too late in the season, too wet and cold to put a thousand miles on the bike in the next few days. He took her Jeep instead, figuring if things went bad when he found her, he could take his truck and head North without leaving her stranded, at least.

By the time he crossed the Potomac, she was on the move again. Down 85 through Durham to Greensboro, just like he thought. He didn't follow too quickly, figuring she might need some time.

Christ knew he did.

The thought of facing her after what had happened sat in his stomach like a bitter stone. She'd might have goaded him into it, but he'd deliberately disregarded all the rules. He'd brought the mountain to Muhammad, forcing it on her instead of letting it be her choice.

And yet there was also a low growling in his mind, whispering that he'd complied with her demands and she still hadn't given him a single answer about her daughter. Not that he'd given her the chance, but his need for answers was second only to his desire to make amends.

There was little chance she'd tell him now, he knew. Not after what he'd done. But when he wasn't torturing himself with guilt, he was trying to put together the pieces. Trying to work out what had happened.

Had her daughter died? Had she abandoned her? Given her up? Been too young and afraid to raise her alone? Too ashamed to bring her to the school? Maybe she'd left her with her mother? She'd confessed to him that she'd returned home to visit. Logan frowned, remembering that conversation. They'd argued about her father. He'd been upset that she hadn't told him her dad had died.

He tried to think back to what else she'd said about that trip.

" _But it wasn't the same, even though the things in the house were the same. School pictures lining the hallway. My bronzed baby shoes on the mantle, like always next to the shadowbox with my christening gown and booties knitted by Mama. Even—" her voice trembled, "Even the marks on the wall in the kitchen where Mama measured me every birthday until I ran away…"_

Pictures of her as a child. Baby shoes. Booties. A christening gown. That's where her focus had been.

Jesus.

The clues were there if he'd just paid more attention. He'd been trying so damn hard to get her to open up that he hadn't recognized it when she had. He'd been so focused on the physical intimacy that he'd missed the deepening emotional intimacy.

The realization made him angry, too. She'd had so many opportunities to tell him about her daughter. They'd been playing this fucking game for months now, to say nothing of the years before that. He lay in a shitty motel bed in Charlotte, driving himself crazy replaying every conversation they'd had, over and over, trying to look for anything else he might have overlooked. It was like looking for a needle in a stack of needles. Who knew which detail might be significant and which ones were just a product of her unique plural memory?

He drank too much and slept too little.

The driving conditions sucked. Autumn thunderstorms left the interior of the windows on the Jeep wet with condensation and there were accidents and construction projects that had him crawling along, cursing and wiping at the foggy windows impatiently as he inched down the freeway.

He was in Atlanta when it occurred to him that maybe her daughter had died — and that maybe it wasn't because of heart defect or some other congenital problem, but because of Marie's mutation. Maybe she'd been able to carry the baby but not deliver it.

She'd had the Cure, but he had no idea when that had worn off. He didn't automatically think of her as Marie-with-deadly-skin. To him, she was just Marie. But there was no escaping the truth. She was powerful enough to kill him. What hope was there that a newborn could survive even a few brief moments of contact with her skin? If that was the case, it was little wonder why she'd never spoken of it — and it certainly explained her violent aversion to touch.

The knowledge did not sit well, churning in his guts like a knot of squirming worms.

He pulled over and threw up.

~ooOoo~

Logan lost several hours after Montgomery, assuming because he'd been right so far, that she'd go east to Meridian and then down to Slidell. She stayed on 85 and went south instead, avoiding Meridian and passing through Mobile on her way to New Orleans.

What did that mean that she was avoiding her old home?

Was it significant?

It had to be more than a coincidence, surely.

He wondered what she was thinking about as she drove. Normally he liked driving, liked the monotony of the black ribbon of road disappearing under the tires and the time alone to think as the world sped past the windows. This trip was different.

The more time that passed, the worse the waiting became. Logan had been tempted to contact her from the beginning. He knew she had a phone, but somehow, every time he had his phone in hand, he found he couldn't push the button. For now, the distance brought a fragile peace and the more he thought about it, the more he felt like what needed to be said should be done face to face.

No more buffers.

No more third parties.

No more pretending.

~ooOoo~

They both spent the night in Slidell in different motels at opposite ends of town. He was trailing her still, but only by minutes rather than hours or days. It wasn't so much that it felt anticlimactic to catch her now as it was that he was afraid of what would happen once he did.

They'd be in New Orleans tomorrow.

What then?

He couldn't sleep, and when he did, he was rocked with nightmares that left him sweaty and trembling, his throat hoarse from a dying scream. Trapped. Caught. Twisting in the mire and struggling to get free. And always, the insidious echo of cruel laughter. Men who took pleasure in his agony as he thrashed and writhed and tore himself bloody. For revenge. For answers. For freedom.

The shitty motel he'd chosen was a small collection of crumbling bungalows along a murky, backwater inlet. The peeling salmon paint said they'd been redecorated — badly — decades ago. Now they were weathered and mossy with the green tinge that seemed to cover everything here that was still for any length of time.

It had a dock, though. And he passed the night there, feeling foolish and grateful for the soothing company of the stars.

* * *

Up next: **Light**. Buckle up, folks. We're about to turn and burn.


	25. Light

Logan let Marie see him outside of the diner where she'd stopped for brunch. _Maman Le Roux's_. The hand-painted sign was so worn he almost couldn't read it, but the place was packed. Cajun French music spilled out the doors into the muggy afternoon sunshine and the air on the sidewalk was thick with hearty wafts of andouille and jumbalaya.

He shoveled crawfish pie into his mouth without tasting it, watching from a distance as a round woman with white hair and bright eyes fussed over Marie. She seemed subdued, but once or twice she smiled in a way that lit her up from within and he realized he'd never seen her like that before.

That it took her a while to notice him said a lot about her state of mind. He thought maybe it would be better this way. To let her know he was here rather than to just walk up to her expecting… well, expecting her to talk or listen, or both. It went against his natural instincts — an experienced predator giving up the element of surprise. He couldn't truthfully say that he wasn't a hunter. But she certainly wasn't _prey_.

She jumped a little when she saw him, frowning, brows drawn together in contemplation. She didn't yell at him, or run from him, or even acknowledge him beyond a sigh and a subtle shifting of her body so that he couldn't see her face. She seemed to accept that he was here with a casual resignation that irritated him even as he was thankful for it. This — whatever _this_ was between them — wasn't something that could sink without a ripple.

He left before she did, melting away easily into the afternoon crowd milling up and down the shady backwoods boardwalk. He needed to move. Being still hurt too much. Music overlapped with the slow bustle of a sunny autumn afternoon. Spices, sweet and savory, were carried on air that was thick with lush scents of damp and green and growing things. Strings of lights twinkled here and there among bottles of spirits and neon signs, advertising a wilder nightlife than the bucolic scene suggested.

Logan wanted Marie to know he was here without feeling pressured to immediately hash it out with him. She wasn't the sort of person who enjoyed surprises, even the good ones. His phone buzzed in his pocket, sending a surge of adrenaline through him.

He didn't look right away, thinking it was probably Marie telling him to fuck off or go away. When he finally did look, it wasn't her. Storm again, requesting that he check in. She'd probably found out about him losing his shit in the cage the other night. He ignored it.

Marie was gone by the time he made his way back to the Jeep. He followed at a distance, cursing when the back roads became gravel roads that became dirt roads not listed on any map. The bayou was another world entirely.

A memory surfaced of her telling him that the Cajun couldn't be found unless he wanted to. Fuck GPS. The blinking dot of her truck hadn't moved in more than an hour. She was on foot. The Wolverine rattled the bars, pleased to have circumstances tip back in his favor. It didn't take too long to find where she'd parked his truck. Pulling off into the trees he parked next to the abandoned truck and stepped out of the Jeep, boots sinking deeply into the rich black mud he remembered seeing caked on Marie's heels.

Close.

He was close, now.

To her.

And the secrets she'd kept for far too long.

~ooOoo~

The bayou hummed around him like a living thing. Breathing. Buzzing with insects and the soft suck-shoop of his footfalls on the spongy ground. Sunlight dappled the landscape around him, illuminating patches of foliage and moss. Bright pops of verdant green so vivid it hurt to look at them glowed like jewels. The air was thick and humid, rife with the scent of fecund earth and decaying vegetation.

Marie's trail wasn't hard to find. She hadn't obscured it or hidden it in any way. The pressure of her tracks told him that she'd moved easily through the difficult terrain. He could see where she'd stopped to stroke the fiddlehead whorl of a fern, and later, where she'd paused to pick a dandelion puff.

She was moving slowly and his heart thudded, aware he would catch up to her soon. They were climbing a gentle slope, barely a small rise for someone who'd spent considerable time in the Canadian Rockies. It was vibrant and alive, though, crackling with energy in a way the still alpine forests did not.

He found her at the top of the rise, sitting under the shade of a fragrant tree he could not immediately identify. Crouching, he studied her for a time, unable to see anything else. He was desperate to read her, to assure himself she was okay and to glean what secrets he could from this silent appraisal.

Slowly, he became aware she was rocking back and forth. Just barely. It reminded him of the wind in the trees and of the motion of the dock back home.

Her hands were bare.

She was crying. He couldn't smell the tang of salt, the air was too thick with the heavy odors of peat and earth and brackish water, but he could see the shine on her face. It wasn't deep wracking sobs, but a profound despair that seemed to seep from her, slipping from under her lashes to trickle down her neck.

He thought he should go away. He was seeing something not meant to be shared. Praying or mourning. Maybe penance for absolution that would never come. Whatever it was, it was intensely private, but he was unable to leave, or to look away from her, or to see anything beyond the space around her shimmering with pain. He was afraid, too. He didn't want his last memories of her to be like _this_.

And so he stayed.

In time, she stopped rocking. Her lips began to move, to mouth words, but he couldn't tell what she was saying. And then she stopped altogether, so still it raised the hair on the back of his neck. A snake slithered over her and she snapped its neck with casual disregard, flinging it from her like a child's toy.

Lost in watching her pain, he'd forgotten that she was so much _more_. Logan could feel her power from where he stood. Her human shell concealed a vital being as fierce as the Wolverine, and just as unpredictable. She was not a child. She was not even a woman. She was _life_. A creature capable of consuming every living thing on the planet if she chose to do so.

She did not appear surprised when he emerged from the shelter of the trees and moved to join her. His silent steps halted as she turned her head and looked at him with feral eyes that were not at all human.

For a long moment he wondered if she might kill him. Raise that naked hand, press it to his flesh and pull him into her until he was nothing but ash and bitter memories. Gleaming, silver bones left behind to be swallowed by the green earth around him.

He joined her anyway.

There was no point in denying it. The time for secrets was over. His life was already hers.

~ooOoo~

Marie didn't greet him. Didn't call out. Didn't even turn her head as he sat in the mossy grass next to her.

"Sorry, kid—" he began, only to have her wave away the words and talk over him.

"My daughter is here." Her voice was soft, husky with emotion, and the pain he heard there made his eyes sting uncomfortably. "Do you see?" The way she said it, he thought maybe he should be looking for a grave marker or a cairn of stones.

Logan shook his head, wondering if a grieving mother could see something he could not. The sound of a child's thin, reedy voice floated up on the wind, only to be snatched away in the next moment by a bird's cry. A shudder passed through him sharply. He was not a religious man, but he had seen and felt spirits walking among the living, and for one horrible instant, he thought maybe her daughter was among them.

His eyes scanned the little valley below, from the ancient cypress trees knotting the edge of the water to the viney bracken blanketing the wild scrub along the ground. Fallen logs and thick brush. Little open areas dotted with reedy grasses and the occasional wildflower. Moss hung in tangles from the branches above, sheltering the floating carpet growing on the top of dark water.

"Just there." Her naked finger pointed towards a thick patch of knotted limbs overgrown with a tangle of wild vines. "On the porch."

For a handful of moments he considered that she was hallucinating, maybe so desperate to see her baby that she'd made up a fantasy to cope with the loss. But then, suddenly, there it was.

"Jesus Christ," he entoned softly, in awe.

He'd looked, but he hadn't _seen_. The tangle of limbs and vegetation was a _house_ , so artfully camouflaged that was virtually indistinguishable from the surrounding terrain. It wasn't a ramshackle house reclaimed by the swamp, but a home built out of the land so seamlessly that it was almost impossible to detect.

"Yeah."

"Holy shit." Even with the considerable senses at his disposal, it was unlikely he'd have noticed it unless she had pointed it out.

"My daughter is on the porch playing with Red."

He looked harder. "Red?"

"My dog."

She had a dog named _Red_? That earned her a pointed glare, but she dismissed him with a shrug.

"Goddamn," he breathed, scanning the tangle of vines, not really sure what to look for even with her direction. He was beginning to pick out what must be windows and doors and maybe stairs. The home was a considerable ways up off the ground, as many bayou homes were.

A speckled lump that he thought had been leaves suddenly stood and shook its massive, shaggy head, tongue lolling as a small child tumbled out from between its legs with a squeal somewhere between indignation and delight. The wriggling bundle of churning legs righted itself, pulling on the dog's ear for support, as the pair stumbled into the sunlight. The child's wild red hair glowed in the sun, a radiant spray of copper and russet and gilt that left him breathless.

He tried twice before he could get the words out. "What's her name, darlin'?"

"Elaine." She pronounced it the French way, with the emphasis on the E. To his ear, it sounded like Ellen.

"Elaine," he repeated.

"It means shining light."

The child, still lit brilliantly by the sun, appeared to have a halo of sunbeams. Vivid red curls hung down her back, turning golden towards the ends. Her hair was big and wild, like Marie's. She had pale skin and her mother's dark eyes and temper, if the scolding tone of the chatter was any indication. Logan thought of the auburn haired man in the wedding photo she'd shown him once. He could see the stamp of him on the child, too, even without the hair that clearly marked her as his own.

"I can see why you chose it."

"That's not why."

He was unable to tear his gaze away from the child to look at Marie.

"For the torch," her voice shook. "For the spark you gave to me."

Logan nodded, unable to force out any words. She'd passed the spark he'd given to her on to her daughter. The child was not his, but without him, she'd never have been born.

It was a long time before he spoke.

"Tender," he murmured softly. Until this moment, he hadn't fully understood why she'd used that word to describe what happened between them that night in the torch. "I get it now."

"Tender," she echoed, watching her daughter play with a deep longing that made him hurt in places he thought long dead.

The sun was beginning to set. Soon, there would be fireflies. And stars.

And a box of shimmering secrets, spilled like seeds on the fertile, bayou ground.

* * *

Up next: **Incandescent**. In which the Rogue breaks and the Wolverine finally gets his answers. But one of the worst things about secrets is that whatever they're hiding often doesn't truly feel real until it's shared with someone else...


	26. Incandescent

Author's note: Sorry, folks. RL is continuing to kick my ass. However, I have some good bourbon and a copy of the Rogue Cut (freaking finally!) in my possession. Bring on the muses!

* * *

"You really named your dog Red?"

Logan looked over at Marie, reading the guilty flush before she even replied, but her answer was pure Rogue.

"Well, I figured Jean was a little too on-the-nose, even for me." He chuckled for a moment until she added, "I picked the biggest, ugliest, mangiest bitch I could find at the pound." Her tone rubbed him wrong and he growled at her. "Hey, I take my victories where I can find them, sugar." Marie smiled at him then, eyes glittering. "And I did enjoy yelling at her that one time she shit on the carpet."

Logan laughed in spite of himself.

"I probably enjoyed kicking her out of the bedroom every night a little too much, too."

There was still a lot of tension between them and he recognized the exchange for what it was. He could have taken offence, but instead he forced himself to let it pass, sitting back against the tree and wishing he had a cold beer with something stronger as a chaser. Something to brace himself for what was coming. This was the only the warm up.

"I'm namin' my next dog LeBeau."

"Fair enough." Her smile faded and he could see then that the shadows had never really left her eyes.

They fell silent. Around them and among the thick trunks below, fireflies began to flicker and wink in and out.

"Talk," he finally said, too uneasy to wait patiently.

"Because I _owe_ you?" she snapped, an edge to her voice that hadn't been there before.

"Because you need to."

He was surprised when she bristled.

"You don't know shit about what I need."

"I know you need _her_." His gaze drifted back up to the little girl now curled into the dog's side, sucking her thumb and combing the fingers of her other hand through the animal's thick pelt in a rhythmic, soothing way. "You need to be down there, with her, and you ain't." Marie was gaping at him. "Some bad shit musta gone down for it to shake out that way. And for touch to scare you so fuckin' bad you'd agree to watch me instead of—" he hesitated there because what came next was: _instead of takin' me for yourself._

Marie nodded silently, some of her stiffness melting away at the truth in his words. An indication of the internal shift from defensive to resigned.

"I asked you once if someone needed killin'." She'd told him no.

Marie nodded again.

"You needta change your answer?"

"Maybe." Her sigh carried on the wind, licking at his ear. "But you won't like it."

"Try me." He was ready to kill for her — always, but especially now if need be.

"It's me."

"What?" He looked at her in confusion.

"It's me, sugar. I'm the one who needs to be out of this picture for the rest of the pieces to fit."

His eyes softened. He wanted to take her hand in his, but he kept a respectful distance, aware of her intense dislike of being touched. She was twirling the rumpled stem of the dandelion in her fingers. They were stained green slightly with the bitter, milky fluid. The puff was gone, leaving just the broken stem behind.

She saw him looking and held it up. "No more wishes left, I guess." She was wrong about that. There were a few random seeds caught in her hair, but he understood what she was saying applied to more than just a crumpled flower.

He shrugged. "Don't matter. Wishes don't do shit for ya." He'd know. Marie looked over, but didn't seem surprised by his gruff response. He wasn't the sort of man who sugarcoated anything. "You want things to be different, it ain't wishin' that'll get the job done."

"Brute force can't fix everything, Logan."

"You think I don't know that?"

"Some things can't be fixed."

That, he knew. All too well.

"Those're the things you share, kid. Otherwise, they'll break ya."

Tears glittered in her lashes, but she was still angry. Still defiant.

"Oh, like you do, you mean?" she scoffed. Her tone suggested that was the pot calling the kettle black.

"I do, with you." It wasn't entirely the truth. He wanted to, but even as the words left his mouth, he knew she wouldn't have it. But then you didn't get this close to a wounded animal and not expect to get bitten.

"You share your orgasms with me, sugar. Not your feelings," she snapped. "But you share those with anyone who has a nice rack and a willing hole. Just a big swingin' dick, spreading its seed, right?"

"And you share jackshit!" The dog picked its head up off the porch and looked their way, ears pricking warily at the angry tone. "Vague bullshit and lies you twist up to keep everyone at arm's length because you're a coward, Marie. And then you sit up here cryin' and wishin' and doin' fuck-all about it."

"I could kill you right now," she hissed.

"Try it, princess. 'Cause if you think I'm gonna shut up in your head any more than out here—"

"I almost killed _her_."

The words died in his throat.

"Because that's what I am. What I do. What I'm _made_ for." She twirled the dandelion stem in her fingers absently and then pulled the naked head off and tossed it away. "Maybe you _should_ kill me. Maybe one of these days I'll push you too far and you'll snap for real."

Holy Christ. Is _that_ what she'd been doing?

"You wanna die?" His heart was beating very fast. Hers was eerily steady.

"No." She sighed. "I don't want that for her."

"But you do for you?"

Marie just shrugged.

"What I want stopped being important about a second after I peed on the stick and it turned blue."

"So, now what?"

"Now I figure out how to live with what I am."

"What you _are_?" Like she was a goddamn leper?

"Death." She blinked at him, those strange inhuman eyes wild and bright, shining in the darkness.

His hair suddenly sprang erect and he shivered with a grunt. "Mmph."

"What? Ghost walk over your grave?"

"No. I was thinkin' about somethin' that Voodoo girl said." With the mist beginning to roll in off the bayou, it seemed a fitting place to remember her. "She told me I was the spirit of the dead. Baron somethin' or other."

"Samedi?"

"How'd you know that?"

"Sugar, you don't live in Cajun country and not pick up a few things." He felt those strange eyes of hers take his measure. "I can see why she thought that. Death and resurrection and fertility..." Logan shifted uncomfortably. "You show her the claws?"

"Yeah."

"Before or after?"

"After the sex. Before the Voodoo lesson was over." He tried to catch her eye, but she wouldn't let him. "She called you somethin' too. The eternal flame."

"Death's bride."

"Yeah."

He watched gooseflesh rise on Marie's exposed skin as well.

It was a topic that made them both uncomfortable, because if she was Death, they were a mated pair.

A firefly winked between them, a welcome distraction from the awkward silence.

"I used to think they were fairies." Her smile was sad. "A million years ago in a different life."

"I wonder what she thinks?" Logan nodded toward the porch where a sleepy little girl was watching the fireflies, her head now slumped against the dog's side, rising and falling softly with each breath.

"I don't know." He could tell the answer pained her. "I don't know anything about her now. Not her favorite food or book or song. Not what soothes her to sleep or makes her laugh, or— or…"

She stopped then, unable to go on.

"So tell me about the part you do know." The twilight was different here. Richer. Warmer. Marie's bare face shone with a soft nacre and for a moment, he saw the past. She was that girl young again, wild-eyed and skittish. In a flicker, it was gone. "She grew under your heart, darlin'. She'll never really be a stranger to you."

Marie let out a shaky breath, leaning back in the lush grass, but with her face turned so she wouldn't miss a moment of drinking in her daughter.

"She wasn't a mistake or a surprise. I wanted her. _We_ wanted her."

Logan grunted. That hurt. He'd been expecting to hear that she'd been like most teenage mothers. That her birth control had failed or that the baby was a result of a night of drunken sex, or careless counting, or pure sexual abandon. He was not prepared for the knowledge that the pregnancy had been deliberate.

"You okay to hear this, sugar?"

No. But he'd been waiting for this moment for years, and he wasn't about to let the bloody ribbons of his own heart keep him from the answers he needed.

"Yeah. You go ahead."

He couldn't take too much more of these starts and stops. Like little hesitation cuts before the courage is marshalled to grasp the blade and cut _deep_.

She didn't see the flicker of hurt flare in his eyes because she was watching her daughter.

"I was in love. With Remy. With touchable skin. With the Cure. With the idea of love and being a mother. And babies. And happily ever afters." She was silent a long moment. "Stupid, huh?"

"Nah." He didn't think a man who'd wished on every star in the sky had much room to criticize.

"I wasn't in a great place when we first met. After Bobby. After..." She shrugged. "Just after. That's when Murphy's Law will getcha. The night I met Remy, I'd told Jubes I'd sworn off all men. That I was done. Ready to tap out."

"Mmph." A grunt of agreement.

"I think the universe took that as a personal challenge."

That made him smile.

"We got married pretty fast. Honeymoon in Paris. I was pregnant before we came back."

Logan closed his eyes against the burn.

"The Cure wasn't about some _boy_. It was my chance to have a baby. I knew that. And I was selfish enough to try. Because when you're nineteen and believe the power of your own bullshit, you can convince yourself that happily ever after really does happen if you want it bad enough. I wanted to create the family I'd lost. My father. Charles. Scott. You… It was my chance and I took it."

He let her talk without interrupting, afraid she'd stop if he even offered her a word of solace. The knife's edge sliced deeper with every word. She'd considered him her family. Once.

Christ.

"We'd already seen the heartbeat when we started hearing rumors that the Cure was wearing off. We cried and talked and prayed and fought and talked some more. He tried to convince me that everything would be fine. I tried to convince myself."

Her chest rose and fell as she drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly, eyes flicking over to him to see how he was taking it so far. He nodded, not trusting his voice.

"He had this theory…" Her face flushed. "That even if my mutation did come back, that my skin wouldn't hurt him or the baby. That because the baby was a mix of his DNA and mine, that my body wouldn't be able to tell their skin from my own, at least while I was pregnant."

Plausible theory. He could tell from her tone though, how that had worked out.

"One night when we were making love, I hurt him with my skin. Bad."

Logan winced. "He freak?"

"No. He was really good about it. Sad— sad about not being able to touch me like he used to anymore, but not upset at me. He bought some gloves and started talking about bodysuits but I could tell something had died that night."

A growl rumbled in his chest, low and deep.

"I could feel Elaine the whole time."

"Kickin'?"

"No. Well, yes. But more than that, too. Remy, he can manipulate energy, but he's an empath, too."

"Wonderful," he muttered.

"I could _feel_ her. Her emotions. Her feelings. Impressions more than actual thoughts. She must have gotten that from him. And maybe I got it from her. I don't know. But I could tell when she was content or afraid or sleepy. Like that."

"Goddamn."

"Yeah. I never told Remy about that. By the time I figured out it was real and not, you know, wishful thinking on my part, well, I was afraid he'd feel left out. He'd probably have been able to feel her too if he could touch me, but he couldn't. Not anymore. It seemed cruel to tell him. _Hey, babe. There's this awesome thing that you'll never be a part of_ , you know? So I just… didn't."

"Yeah. I get it." He didn't agree, but it wasn't his decision to make.

"Everyone was so sure that it would be okay. I had so many doctors. Even Hank consulted. They all thought that everything would be fine after I had her." Marie's eyes closed. "They were all wrong. She was born and it was the most amazing, joyous, powerful experience of my life. Holding her squirming body against my breast and hearing her cry and counting all her fingers and toes and seeing those big eyes open and close and I could _feel_ her, too. The connection was still there."

Logan felt his own eyes grow wet.

"And then they cut the cord. The second she wasn't a part of me, my skin pulled her in. She wailed and I could feel her pouring into me. Feel her fear and then she was suddenly gone. Remy pulled her out of my arms and they got her— got her breathing again." Tears were sliding wetly down her cheeks now. "I never felt her again. The connection never came back."

"I'm sorry, kid."

She didn't respond to his words, but her body shuddered lightly as she breathed, fragile as spun glass. The dam had broken and it was pouring out now, unchecked. She didn't even swipe at the tears.

"Remy convinced me that we could do it. That it would be okay, that I just needed to make sure I was covered when I was touching her and we'd work out the rest. I wanted to believe him because the alternative was unthinkable."

Logan understood what the alternative was all too well. She was beside him now, mourning the loss of a child who still lived.

"I was terrified to touch her and she was only happy when she was being held. I couldn't change her or even feed her."

"Feed her?"

She was blushing again. "My milk came in, but I couldn't let down to the pump. I tried until I cracked and bled. I'd give in, hold her and she'd scream and cry and I'd have milk leaking everywhere but I couldn't nurse her and she'd smell it and cry and refuse the bottle. We had to put her on formula and it gave her colic. She'd cry for hours and hours. I'd cry too. Remy did his best to help, but over time all the sleepless nights took their toll."

Her eyes were fixed now, seeing the past rather than the present and he was afraid even breathing loudly would interrupt the flow.

"One night when I hadn't slept for more than about forty minutes in one stretch in about three weeks, I slipped. I was just too tired to notice and she touched me. Just the brush of a finger. That was all it took. She almost died, right there on the floor of our bedroom. I left that night. It was the hardest thing I've ever done."

"Darlin'— "

"Don't!" Her voice and swung from soft to sharp. "Don't you _dare_ presume to tell me a damn thing. There's nothing anyone can ever say that will make this better." He thought maybe she didn't want it to be better; maybe she needed to punish herself. He understood that, too. When the pain was gone, all that was left is acceptance. And that hurt more.

"Marie—"

"You know, men look at me and see a piece of ass with blowjob lips. Women see weird hair and imperfect teeth. My dad saw a freak. Charles saw something even he couldn't fix. Eric saw something he could use up and throw away. I don't even know what you see. A challenge, maybe? Who fucking knows? I see a failure as a woman and a mother. It's like a cosmic joke that my breasts still tingle when I hear a baby cry that sounds like her. A reminder of all the things I wanted and will never _ever_ have."

"And LeBeau? Whatcha think he sees?"

"Besides the woman who almost murdered his child? Isn't that enough?"

"He throw you out?"

She shook her head. "He begged me to stay." She was making it really damn hard to hate the guy. "But we both knew that would never work. I can't be what I am and also be her mother."

"You'll always be her mother."

"Like the woman who brought you into this world is yours?" The words were soft with despair, rather than sharp with accusation. "You don't even remember her."

He understood, then. Her daughter would never remember her, either.

"You're right, I don't."

His life was a patchwork of barely recalled moments; all of them hazy and most of them bad. He had no anchor. No people. No history. No birthday to celebrate, but he still lit a candle for his mother every spring. Time moved differently for him. He didn't do it to mark the passage of the seasons, but in acknowledgement. Phantom pain in a limb long severed. Acknowledgement that he'd had a home once, and a family, even if he didn't remember them. It wasn't the sort of thing he had ever shared, but he thought, now, that maybe he should.

And so he did. Slowly. Haltingly. Telling Marie how he honored a mother that he couldn't even remember. It was painful and awkward. She was right; sharing his orgasms was far easier. He'd rather bare his body than his soul, even to her. At least his body would heal.

He thought she might be too full of her own pain to truly hear what he was saying, but she turned to him then, eyes wet and luminous in the fading light.

"Does it help?"

His lips thinned, the truth locked behind them.

She heard it anyway, reading it in the set of his powerful shoulders and the way he wouldn't meet her eyes. "That's what I thought."

She closed her eyes then, strangely still against the verdant richness of the bayou buzzing vibrantly around them. It appeared to him she seemed to be willing her body to sink into the earth and that sent a chill slithering down his spine, despite the humid night embracing them.

On the porch, a lithe man unfolded from the shadows, his strange eyes burning purposefully into the darkness before he scooped the little girl up into his arms. She sighed and then plastered herself against him, chubby arm wrapped tightly around his neck. " _Papa!_ "

Beside him, Marie flinched.

"Remy," she said unnecessarily, without opening her eyes.

Logan realized in that moment that of course a child of that age wouldn't have been allowed to play on a raised porch without supervision. Irritation followed, stinging like a red-hot lash. Even if he'd only had eyes for Marie's daughter, he should have known the man was there.

His lack of situational awareness was jarring. The tall Cajun moved like a ghost; silent as a shadow and just as sure. The urge to hit him, to force the Cajun to his knees and prove his primacy over him was strong. Blood roared in his ears and he could taste it in his mouth; rich and bitter with the tang of metal. This man had known Marie's body — and her love. The animal was restless within him, clawing and pacing; the presence of a rival enough to bring him howling to the fore.

A door opened, spilling an amber glow into the plummy twilight, the silhouette of a young woman thrown into vivid relief.

"His lover," Marie whispered, eyes on the small arms locked around her papa's neck. Marie deliberately ignored the pretty girl who'd taken her home and her bed and her family.

It caught Logan unaware, a fresh wash of something searing and uncomfortable rising up to choke him. His claws emerged, an automatic response. Her voice ached with longing. The beast howled.

Christ, anything but this. _This_ was agony.

Marie looked at the wicked blades, gleaming in the dying light with the promise of terrible freedom they offered from a moment too painful to be endured.

"Yes," she said simply, understanding so implicit in her quiet reply that he was momentarily struck mute.

"It doesn't work," he returned finally, looking up at the sky and recalling the times that he'd bled the ground red in an effort to escape the reality of his existence. He was acutely uncomfortable. He hadn't felt this fatally exposed since he'd wrapped her fingers around his tags a lifetime ago. He managed to get the claws back in, but only just. They were there lurking barely under the surface, pricking at the sensitive skin between his knuckles and making him twitchy.

"I wish you didn't know that."

"Back atcha."

She sat up, making no effort to conceal her face from him as she indicated to the house nestled in the valley below them with a slow nod.

"So now you know." Her face changed. The mocking sing-song lilt to her voice disturbed him, invoking thoughts of a nursery rhyme written in blood. "This is the house of cards that Marie built."

* * *

Up next: **Cauterize**. Y'all know there's no way the Cajun is gonna stay on that porch, right? Gold star to anyone who can guess what comes next…


	27. Cauterize

Author's note: Sorry, y'all. RL is continuing to have its wicked way with me. WTF? Any weekend in which you have to have the tow truck take your (totally dead) vehicle to the shop isn't a winner in my book. (It could have been much worse, so I am thankful for that at least! Everyone is safe and it didn't die on the road, so there's that!) Just a heads up: It might be more than week before the next update. We'll see how it goes. If it's a simple fix then maybe, but if it's a week with a rental car and other various assorted shenanigans then I might need to skip a week. Onward!

* * *

Marie's flow of words ended as abruptly as it began, and then there was only the night humming around them, alive with the lap of brackish water and the skittering flicker of insect wings. Wind moved in the trees and the slow whooshing was underscored by the endless low, wet notes of unseen things slithering into the bayou.

On the hill, Logan and Marie sat in silence as the moon began to rise through the wild tangle of branches.

The weight of what she'd shared rested heavy in his heart. It wasn't hard to imagine what domestic scene was taking place in the house below. Likely LeBeau had been watching the child, ordered out of the small kitchen by the woman who found it easier to cook without a dog, a child, and her man underfoot. There might be a sweet treat afterwards for the child, perhaps a glass of wine for her parents. Bath time, certainly, for a tumbledown little girl who'd spent her day playing in the bayou with her dog. Bedtime. Books read, songs sung and a cup of water on the nightstand. Lovers curling up together after the house was quiet and still.

It was clear from the expression on Marie's face that she was imagining the same. He wondered how many times she'd come here; watching and wishing with her heart slashed to ribbons. It was clear she loved her daughter. After some of their conversations, he wasn't sure if she was mourning the loss of the man she loved as much as the life she'd been so desperate to have that she'd willingly taken the Cure.

Eventually the door opened again, briefly illuminating LeBeau as he exited. He walked the perimeter of the porch, finally settling just at the edge of a wide trunk that was somehow, organically and artfully, also one of the structural supports. It was a good spot. He could see them, but they couldn't see him. All but an eerie red shine from his eyes when the moonlight hit them just right. Logan's hair stood up on his arms. Wolves had eyes like that. Foxes. Big cats. Predators, he thought with a grunt. Other animals did, too, but the man on the porch wasn't a goddamn rabbit, that much was certain.

They'd come in on foot, but a man like that— he'd have eyes on the ridge, no doubt. An empath, she'd said. Sensitive to the ebb and flow of energy. Of course he knew they were here.

On the porch, he saw the flare of a match and the red glow of a cigarette. Cocky son-of-a-bitch, advertising his presence now when he had been so cleverly concealed before — and could easily be again, Logan thought with a frown. The wind brought the scent to him without fail, however. Tobacco. Cloves. Ozone. Something hot and electric, like the buzzing air immediately after a lightning strike.

Without warning, the man on the porch uncoiled, springing lightly over the edge, taking the twenty foot drop effortlessly to land without a sound. The cherry from his cigarette marked his path, straight up the grade and aiming for the tree where they sat.

Logan wondered if this was a part of the ritual. Maybe this is what Marie did? Came here, crying for the child she'd lost and then having some kind of fight — or worse — some kind of desperate sex with a man she couldn't quite let go.

He was on his feet before he knew it, jaw clenched as he saw the glow of the cigarette between the trees coming closer like some deranged firefly intent on violence. The path was too deliberate to be anything else. They had encroached on this man's space, his home, his _blood_ , and he wasn't going to let that pass.

The Wolverine understood that instinct all too well. Agreed with it, even as his hands curled into fists.

He'd do no less in the Cajun's place.

Beside him, Marie seemed stunned into stillness by the steady upwards progress of the light.

"Shit." Her breath shuddered out. "Shitfire!" She pushed herself to her feet, hurriedly wiping at her eyes and nose self-consciously. Pulling off the hat she wore, she raked her fingers through her hair a few times, obviously uneasy that Logan was watching, squared her shoulders and jammed his hat back on. "Shit," she said again, more agitated than he'd ever seen her.

"This ain't how it usually goes down?"

"No." She didn't tuck tail and run. She didn't put her gloves back on either, and that sent alarm bells tripping through his head. "I haven't talked to Remy since I left."

"Shit."

"Yeah," she echoed. "You— you should go."

Fuck _that_. He made a rough dismissive noise in his throat.

She seemed to accept his response easily enough, no doubt aware it was pointless to argue with him in this mood.

"Fine, then. Stay. But you should know what you're getting into."

"Mmph." She could tell him whatever the hell she wanted. He wasn't leaving.

"You remember what I told you about his mutation?"

"Besides the emo bullshit?"

"Would you be serious! Just answer the dadgum question!"

"Energy based. Charges shit he touches and makes it go boom. Message received."

Marie nodded. "At full power, he doesn't need to touch the object to make it explode as long as it's in his line of sight."

"Handy," he muttered, but what he thought was: _Well, fuck_.

A wolf in sheep's clothing, she'd said. He got it, now. Dangerous hadn't been an exaggeration, then. As much as he liked a good fight, he didn't think Marie would appreciate him poking Gumbo full of holes.

The urge to push Marie behind him was strong, but he'd had a lot of practice over the years ignoring it. He stood with her, shoulder to shoulder, arms crossed over his chest because letting them hang loose was too easy, too tempting to let the blades out a little. The night was different now, crackling with electricity.

Shit.

Logan smelled him before he saw him, spice and power, and then he was suddenly, silently, there before them, radiating hostility and carrying a staff that looked like it could do some damage. Pack of something in his pocket, too; cigarettes or cards. Armed, either way. The assessment was almost automatic. He could take the Cajun if he had to, but it would be a goddamn bloodbath if he could really do what Marie said he could.

A vision of his eyeball exploding inside an adamantium-laced skull made the bile burn in the back of his throat. His brain. Heart and lungs. His fucking teeth. Jesus. He'd heal, but it would be ugly. He only needed to get close to the fucker once, though. Once is all it would take.

LeBeau was taller. Leaner. More agile too, probably. Long hair that was auburn in the dark but likely redder in full sun. Square jaw that hadn't been shaved in several days. Chiseled features, but not so striking he couldn't play them down and disappear in a crowd if he had to.

Well, if it wasn't for those fucking weird eyes. Up close they were even more disconcerting. How had Marie made love to him with those black pits staring back at her? Like fucking the devil. Girl always did have shit taste in men.

LeBeau was wearing black jeans and boots and a crimson silk shirt the color of old blood. No sign of sweat from the brisk exertion, indicating that he could probably do more with energy than just make things explode. The body was basically one big electrical system. Brain waves. Chakras. Healing was a metabolic process. All of it was based on protons and neutrons and electrons. Fucking perfect.

" _Chère_." The word was quiet, but not soft.

"Don't call me that." Marie's chin lifted defiantly. The Cajun's eyes glowed brighter as they travelled down her body and stopped at her bare hands. His face suddenly shifted; elation and dread and the musk of a different type of excitement altogether. Logan felt a growl build in his chest.

" _Merde_ ," the Cajun muttered. "Can you—"

"No!" Control still eluded her. "No," she said more softly. With regret, Logan thought, hating the look of dying hope in those terrible, red eyes.

The Cajun was nodding, unconsciously twisting the simple gold band he wore on his left hand with his thumb.

" _Désolé."_ He nodded in acknowledgement. "Hmm… no control and yet you come here to Remy with naked hands?" He tsked softly. "That what we are to each other now, _ma petite_? Enemies?" he scoffed. "After everything?" He sounded hurt.

"You brought your staff," she pointed out.

" _Oui,_ you not be alone." They all heard what Remy didn't say. His daughter was safely asleep below, and he intended that she stay that way. No matter what. Logan didn't like the feel of the Cajun's eyes on him, taking his measure. "You be the Wolverine, eh?"

Logan just grunted.

Neither man put out a hand.

LeBeau finally nodded. "I be Remy to her, always, but Gambit to you, _homme_."

Logan still said nothing.

Gambit's lips thinned. Stalemate. They both knew better than to fight over her. But neither one was going to give an inch, either.

Gambit turned back to Marie, his face softening. "She is the light," he said without preamble. None of them had shred of doubt who he meant. "Joy to this old thief, like he never knew. Temper to rival her hair, _chou_. Fierce girl! Wild as the bayou itself. Stubborn as her _maman_."

Marie made a sound that seemed to come up from her soles.

" _Oui_ ," he said in the same tone that she'd used earlier when staring at Logan's gleaming claws. "Her first word was dog. Not _papa_. Dog! She likes oranges and begs for sips of espresso. Shameless." His face was animated now rather than aloof. "She— she sings on the _toilette_. Never two notes the same and always at the top of her lungs until Remy is beautifully undone by the madness."

He took a breath and charged on, caught up in sharing the details with the only other person on Earth who would understand the way he did.

"Nimble little fingers. Learnin' the art so smooth and fast it bring a tear to a proud papa's eye," he exclaimed. "She loves to paint even more than cards. Nothing in the house without a dab on it, now." He extended an arm and on the cuff was a smudge of green. "Carries the _doudou_ you bought her to this day. Feeds her broccoli to Red when she thinks nobody sees. _Mon Dieu_ , the stink, after!"

The ghost of a smile tugged at Marie's full lips.

"That damn dog! She loves her, though. So much there is never the one without the other." Marie was nodding, now. "She loves rain. And papa-bugs…" he flushed, adding, "fireflies," at their twin looks of confusion. The tips of his fingers glowed in illustration. He fluttered them, leaving little trails of light in the darkness. "Her favorite color is yellow. _Soleil_. Rises with it most days and fights sleep with her last breath."

"Thank you." Marie's eyes were wet.

His face clouded. "But, she— she dreams. Bad things. Pain and despair." His eyes flicked to Logan and back to Marie. "Cries that break this man, _chère._ "

"What?"

"You— you can't keep coming to this place. Remy always feel you. Sharp, in here," He thumped his chest. "She feel you now, too. Feel _this_ ," his hand hovered over her heart. "Every time, stronger than the last."

"Oh, god." The color drained from Marie's face and a tremor ran through her. She was shaking her head slowly, in horrified denial. Logan checked the urge to steady her, aware the situation was too volatile all around, even if she'd have welcomed the touch.

" _Oui_. So much pain, you." His voice dropped. "Too much for her. For me." His eyes flicked to the Wolverine. "Maybe for him, too."

Logan grunted at that.

"Now she cries for days when you go. Waking in the night, sobbing until she has no breath, _comprends?_ Nothing consoles her. Nothing. Not the rain. Not papa-bugs. Not even the charming work on her then. Nothing."

Marie stumbled back on shaking legs, falling into the grass, hard, on her backside.

"Remy knows what it is to have no _maman_. No _papa_. You know, too. But _Elaine_ , she has me. She has…" he stopped then, cursing in French. "There's someone. A woman."

"I know." Marie stood, slowly, one hand resting against the thick trunk of the tree for support. "Our rings were platinum. That one's gold."

" _Merde_."

Of course a woman would notice a detail like that. Logan could see her pulling the Rogue's armor close, trying to rebuild the walls that had come crashing down.

"It's been four years, swamp rat. I didn't expect that you'd—"

LeBeau held up his hand. "Don't." He obviously knew her well enough to know what she was doing. And what it cost her to do it.

"Nothing lasts forever," she breathed.

"Remy miss your face, _chère_." There were tears in his eyes now. "But no more, eh?" He waved his hand at the ridge overlooking the small house below. "No more. For her, _s'il te plaît._ No more of this."

The desperation in the Cajun's voice was clear. He was asking this time. Next time, he wouldn't.

He could see Marie shiver with the knowledge that it was truly over. He wouldn't have to ask again. There would be no more stolen moments like the ones they'd shared today.

"No. No more," she intoned flatly.

" _Bon_."

"Kid—" Logan stepped closer, but she waved him away. A long look passed between them and he nodded, falling back.

Gambit watched the silent exchange with interest. The tang of jealousy rose sharply on the wind.

Marie didn't speak. He didn't think she _could_. The animal read the ocean of silence without effort. The subtle shift in her body language, the salty reek of despair and the resignation in her wet glittering eyes. He _knew_ her. They didn't need the words. She wouldn't linger even a moment if she knew it was causing her child pain.

A curt nod to them both and then he was staring at her retreating form as it was swallowed by the verdant night.

Logan was confident of her ability to navigate the bayou, even in the dark, and of his ability to track her through it. Both men watched her go. She said nothing else. The Rogue didn't do goodbyes.

* * *

Up next: **Cremate**. Now, y'all know that Remy isn't going to go gently into that good bayou night. I think it's safe to say the old standby is applicable here:

 _Rage, rage against the dying of the light._


End file.
